
Class MfOTL 
Book- P-ZJ 



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COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 



^tpplelons' iDorttr fonts 
THE REGIONS OF THE WORLD 

EDITED BY 

H. J. MACKINDER, M. A. 

Header in Geography in the 
University of Oxford 



^Ippktons' iDortii Series 
THE REGIONS OF THE WORLD 

EDITED BY 

H. J. MACKINDER, M. A. 

Each complete in One Volume, Large Svo. 

BRITAIN AND THE BRITISH SEAS 

By the Editor 
WESTERN EUROPE AND THE MEDITER- 
RANEAN 

By Elisee Reclus 
CENTRAL EUROPE 

By Joseph Partsch, Ph.D. 
SCANDINAVIA AND THE ARCTIC REGION 

By Sir Clements R. Markham, K.C.B., 
F.R.S., President Royal Geog. Soc 
THE RUSSIAN EMPIRE 

By Prince Kropotkin 
THE NEARER EAST 

By D. G. Hogarth, M.A. 
AFRICA 

By J. Scott Keltie, LL.D., Sec. R. G. S. 
INDIA 

By Colonel Sir Thomas Holdich, K.C.I.E., 
C.B., R.E. 
THE FARTHER EAST 

By Archibald Little 
NORTH AMERICA 

By Israel C. Russell, LL.D. 
SOUTH AMERICA 

By John C. Branner, LL.D. 
AUSTRALASIA AND ANTARCTICA 

By H. O. Forbes, LL.D. 



CENTRAL 
EUROPE 



BY 



JOSEPH PARTSCH, Ph.D. 

PROFESSOR OF GEOGRAPHY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF BRESLAU 



With Maps and Diagrams 



jSTHE-REGIONSSi 




OFTHEWORLD 



NEW YORK 
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY 

1903 



THE LIBRARY OF 
CONGRESS, 

Two Copies Received 

SEP 19 1903 

Copyright Entry 

CLASS^^U XXo. N«. 

COPY A. 



~X* 



Dt 






Copyright, 1903 
By D. APPLETON AND COMPANY 



Published October, 1903 



* s 



EDITORIAL NOTE 

Professor Partsch's manuscript was translated by 
Miss Clementina Black. It was found to be too long 
for publication in an English series, and the trans- 
lation was therefore curtailed by Mr. E. A. Reeves. 
In the shortened form it received the comments of the 
author, and the proofs were finally corrected by the 
editor, who is therefore alone responsible for any 
errors of diction. The editor desires to thank Miss 
Black and Mr. Reeves for their most efficient help. 
Above all is he grateful to Professor Partsch for 
permitting the alteration of the work to meet the 
requirements of Anglo-Saxon readers. The book 
will be published in German in the original form. 

H.J.M, 



PREFACE 

When Mr. Mackinder asked me, in 1897, to undertake 
the volume dealing with Central Europe, in his new 
Geographical Series, The Regions of the World, he and I 
were agreed that, in order to secure the unity of the 
whole work, the plan and division of the material must 
be settled by the editor for the guidance of his fellow- 
workers. My German manuscript was completed in 
September 1899, but when, in the beginning of 1901, 
the English translation had been finished, it appeared 
that it had run to rather too great a length. Some 
abbreviations had to be made in order to reduce it to 
the usual size of the books proposed, and to bring its 
proportions more fully into accord with the volume on 
" Britain and the British Seas," which was published in 
the early part of 1902. For German readers, the German 
edition now in preparation will retain the unabridged 
text as originally written. 

The diagrams and sketch maps in the text were pre- 
pared by the author, and executed by Messrs. Darbishire 
and Stanford. The coloured maps have been specially 
drawn for this book by Mr. J. G. Bartholomew. 

My particular thanks are due to all the gentlemen 
who have participated in the preparation of this volume, 
but more especially to Mr. Mackinder for his kindly 
interest in it. 

In the revision of the English manuscript, and of the 
printed proof, my son Joseph, stud, jur., has been my 
faithful helper. J. P. 

Bresl au, fan. 1, 1903. 



CONTENTS 

CHAP. PAGE 

I. Position and World-Relation i 

II. General Outlines of the Physical History . n 

III. The Alps and the German Danube . . .16 

IV. The Carpathians and the Hungarian Danube 47 

V. The Illyrian Chains, the Balkan, and the 

Lower Danube 57 

VI. The Block Mountains and Tablelands of 

Central Europe . . . . . 72 
VII. The North German Lowland and the German . 

Seas . 89 

VIII. Climate 112 

IX. The Peoples 124 

X. The States 143 

XL Economic Geography 161 

XII. The Alpine Countries 203 

XIII. The Sudetic and Carpathian Countries of 

Austria 214 

XIV. Hungary . . . ■ 221 

XV. The Illyrian and Balkan Countries . .228 

XVI. South and Central Germany . . . .241 

XVII. North Germany 276 

XVIII. The Netherlands . . . . . . 298 

XIX. Communications 313 

XX. The Geographical Conditions of National 

Defence 326 

INDEX 343 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 



MAPS 

I. Central Europe Frontispiece 

II. The Alps To face page 18 

III. Austria- Hungary. Bathy-orographical . „ 5 2 

IV. Germany. Orographical „ 7° 

V. Central Europe. Geological .... „ 80 

VI. Central Europe. Ethnographical , „ 131 

%* Erratum in Map vi. The blue indicative of the Romance Stock should have 
extended over the area crossed by the word " Wallons." 

DIAGRAMS AND MAPS 

FIG. PAGE 

i. The Mountains of Central Europe 10 

2. The Continental Area of Central Europe in Carboniferous 

Times 12 

3. Section through the Gotthard showing Folded Mountains. 

(After Heim and C. Schmidt) 13 

30. Section through the Basin of the Upper Rhine showing Block 

Mountains. (After R. Lepsius) 14 

4. The Rhone Glacier in the Ice Age. (After Falsan et Chantre) 21 

5. Comparative Heights of the Land and Amount of Rainfall . 23 

6. Ancient Valleys of the Four Forest Cantons. (After Albert 

Heim) .29 

7. Ancient Valleys of the Grisons. (After Albert Heim) . . 34 

8. Ancient Transverse Valleys of the Northern Alps 39 

9. The Conquest of the Pinzgau by the Salzach. (After Wanner). 40 

10. Lakes and Moraines of the German Foreland of the Alps . 42 

11. Entry of the Danube into the Jura . .... 44 

12. The Lake Region of the High Tatra. ... . . 49 



Xlll 



xiv LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 

FIG. PAGE 

13. Section of the Ground under Buda-Pest. (After Szabo) . 51 

14. The Hydrography of the Karst 59 

15. The Underground Drainage of Illyria. (After Supan) . . 61 

16. Successive Edges of the Ice Sheet in the Last Glacial Epoch. 

(After Keilhack) 91 

17. A Prussian Haff . 95 

18. The Boddens of Pomerania 96 

19. The Forden of Holstein 97 

20. The Sky of Central Europe 118 

21. The Rainfall of Central Europe 119 

22. Celtic River Names in Germany 125 

23. Advance of the Romans into Central Europe .... 126 

24. The Roman Limes of Germania and Rastia . . . .127 

25. Diagram to show Nationalities . 141 

26. Diagram to show Area of States 156 

27. Diagram to show Population (a.d. 1900) 157 

28. Northern Limits of Maize, the Beech, and the Vine . . . 165 

29. The Proportion of Area under Maize to Area under other 

Cereals . . . . . . . . . . 171 

30. Proportion of Areas under Wheat and Rye .... 173 

31. The Sugar Production of the World ...... 175 

32. Cultivation of Sugar Beet in Central Europe. (After Engel- 

brecht) 177 

33. Cultivation of Potatoes in Central Europe. (After Engelbrecht) 178 

34. Brandy and Beer 180 

35. Area of Wine Lands 181 

36. A Mineral Map of Central Europe 184 

2,7. The Delta of the Vistula . . . . . . . . 286 

38. The Waterways of Central Europe . . . . . 315 

39. Loop Tunnels of St. Gotthard. Approach to the Great Tunnel 

from the North 319 

39«.Loop Tunnels of St. Gotthard. Approach to the Great Tunnel 

from the South . . 319 

40. Diagram showing Lines of Equal Time Distance by Express 

Train from Berlin. (After Mary Krauske) .... 322 

41. The Strongholds for the Defence of Central Europe . . 328 



CENTRAL EUROPE 

CHAPTER I 

POSITION AND WORLD-RELATION 

The claim of Europe to be regarded as an independent 
continent does not rest upon the great area of its Russian 
territory, with the long boundary towards Asia, but rather 
upon the group of its western peninsulas and islands, 
enclosed and divided by gulfs. These many, variously 
shaped members are, however, only welded into a geo- 
graphical whole by the mass of Central Europe lying in 
their midst. Its well-marked outline and independent 
destiny are due to the important fact that two depressions 
in the body of the mainland — the Baltic and the Pontic — 
have had access to the ocean through the sinking of their 
outlets. On the line where these two slightly salt basins 
of the Baltic and Black Seas come nearest together, the 
line between Pillau and Odessa, the continent narrows 
suddenly from 1600 miles to 800. Here, also, the water- 
shed falls exceptionally to less than 500 feet, and it was an 
easy matter for the bold Varangians to transport their skiffs 
from sea to sea. It is in this region that the eastern bound- 
ary of Central Europe must be sought. Here begin sharp 
changes of distance between its northern and southern 
coasts. Narrowings of the mainland occur between 
Stettin and Trieste, between Antwerp and Genoa, and 
between the mouths of the Seine and the Rhone. Much 
closer, however (250 miles), is the approximation of the 
Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea to the north of the 
Pyrenees. There is a strong temptation to transfer thither 

1 



2 CENTRAL EUROPE 

the other boundary of Central Europe. Unquestionably 
France has a certain share in the heart of the continent. 
Yet it must not be entirely included. Two great distinc- 
tions mark it off. France enjoys contact with the ex- 
panse of the open ocean, as well as unimpeded freedom 
of communication between the Atlantic and the Mediter- 
ranean ; and only on the eastern boundary of France do 
the characteristic mountain formations of Central Europe 
appear in force. 

The most conspicuous feature of the configuration is 
the development of the great Alpine system. It is by 
the Alps, the Illyrian chains, the Carpathians, and the Bal- 
kans that the divisions of Europe are fixed, its coun- 
tries held asunder, and their ethnological and political 
independence assured. By them, in particular, the 
Mediterranean and the two peninsulas which were the 
favoured scenes of ancient culture are cut off from 
Central Europe. The mighty mountain barrier, from the 
western foot of the Alps to the eastern extremity of the 
Balkans, is the basis of Central Europe. Within its 
domain must certainly be included the northern slope of 
the Alps and Carpathians, as far as the waters flow from 
these heights. The Romans reckoned the Rhine and the 
Vistula as the boundaries of Germany. These frontiers 
may have corresponded fairly well with the ethnography 
of that period, but they will not suffice for the physical 
geographer: he must rest his boundaries upon features 
of more permanence. 

The tract of country lying between the Alpine ridges 
and the northern seas possesses no natural unity. It 
falls into two bands, of which the southern, that of 
the inferior mountain - chains, stretches over from 
France, and the northern, that of the lowlands, from 
Russia. The threefold belt of Alps, inferior chains, 
and northern lowlands, controls the landscape and 
scenery of Central Europe. Wherever one of these 
elements dies out, Central Europe comes to an end. Its 
most westerly point is therefore marked by the western 
end of the great lowland at Dunkerque, and the land- 



POSITION AND WORLD-RELATION 3 

mark of its eastern border is the Polish upland at 
Sandomirz. On the west, the Ardennes and the Vosges, 
while helping to enclose the basin of Paris, situated 
to west of Central Europe, suffer the Meuse and 
the Moselle to pass through and to meet the Rhine. 
These mountains and the Jura chain, a branch of the 
Alps, form the western boundary of Central Europe, 
broken through by openings for the intercourse and the 
warfare of nations. On the east the plain of North 
Germany lies open to that of Russia. Only arbitrary 
boundary-lines can be drawn on this side. The middle 
Vistula, which flows round the mountains of Sandomirz, 
might be regarded as a natural boundary, but not the 
lower Vistula. The lake plateau of Pomerania finds its 
evident continuation in that of East Prussia, and the 
great valley of the Warta and the Netze, bounded on the 
north by the Pomeranian heights, may be followed along 
the Vistula, the Narew, and the Bobr, into the vicinity of 
the Niemen. 

From these natural boundaries of Central Europe the 
political boundary of its states seldom remains far distant. 
It extends beyond them in German Lorraine, and in parts 
of Bulgaria and Galicia ; it remains within them in Poland 
and the peninsula of Jutland. 

The wide tract of land between Ostend and Geneva, 
between Memel and Burgas, forms at the present day the 
core of the European group of states. This whole tract 
only came into the foreground of general history in the 
Middle Ages. It was touched only in part by the influ- 
ences of ancient civilisation. Only from the two ends of 
the mountain barrier, from Massalia and from Olbia, the 
predecessor of Odessa, did Greek commerce put forth 
weak feelers towards the centre of the continent. The 
Romans were the first to surmount the Alps. On the 
other side of the Danube they long ruled the Rhenish 
mountains; they ruled Transylvania for 150 years, and 
only the early death of Marcus Aurelius prevented the 
subjugation of Bohemia. This event was the turning- 
point that left the Central European dominion of the 



4 CENTRAL EUROPE 

Romans uncompleted, and allowed the Germanic races to 
gather strength and to break into fragments the Roman 
Empire. Not until this effective interposition of the 
Teutonic peoples does European history begin. Until 
that time the western countries of Europe, including the 
British Isles, seemed destined to a meagre provincial life 
as mere dependencies of the Mediterranean empire, while 
those of the east were entirely withdrawn from the 
horizon of the civilised world. With the entrance of 
Central Europe into history begins the foundation of the 
European group of states. 

The leading place among them was not, however, 
reserved to the Teutons alone. The great extent of their 
conquests consumed the diminishing powers of the 
wandering Germanic peoples. Even the renewed growth 
of strength in what remained of their old home, between 
the Alps and the North Sea, the Elbe and the Meuse,. 
did not suffice to make up the losses of the long migra- 
tory period. Not only the lowlands of the east, but 
also the interior of Bohemia were invaded by the Slavs, 
and the Hungarian plain by the Magyars. Thus, even 
at this day, may be found in the heart of the continent,. 
Teutons, Slavs, and peoples of Romance stock, as well 
as a powerful outpost of the Uralo-Altaic races. The 
emulation and the conflicts of these various races form a 
substantial part of European history. Upon the strength 
and independence of the states founded by them depends 
the equilibrium of Europe — the welfare and stability of 
the European group of powers. The idea that Europe 
might one day be half Jacobin and half Cossack was a 
chimera to which the future will never return. True it is, 
undoubtedly, that the social and political dimensions of 
life grow gradually larger. But it does not follow that the 
colossal empires of Great Britain and Russia, whose future 
balance will only be maintained by the development of the 
United States and by the vast population of Eastern Asia, 
are destined gradually to subjugate or absolutely to absorb 
the less spacious powers of Central Europe. The course 
of the world's history does but warn the Central European 



POSITION AND WORLD-RELATION 5 

states to draw socially closer together, and to subordinate 
lesser dividing political interests to the greater aims of 
maintaining to the full their independence, and that 
wealth of social and intellectual culture which has given to 
Europe the first place among the continents of the world. 

This faith in the future is strengthened by a glance at 
the natural endowments of Central Europe, and at the 
additional value given to them by the labour of its peoples. 
Its extent is not insignificant ; it occupies a sixth part of 
the surface of Europe, and contains one-third of the whole 
population of the continent. Its position, between 42 ° 
and 55 north, ensures to the whole tract a climate which 
inclines the inhabitants to activity, and also rewards their 
pains. The variety of conformation creates a group of 
localities, differing greatly as to warmth and moisture ; 
and these differences, co-operating with considerable 
variations of soil, produce, in one part or another, condi- 
tions favourable to every branch of cultivation. Wood- 
lands rich in game, excellent corn-lands, grazing for 
horses, low-lying meadows and mountain pastures for the 
finest of live stock, and orchards and vineyards succeed one 
another ; and the portions which, owing to altitude, sterile 
and rocky soil, sand-drifts, want of water or marshiness, 
are permanently unprofitable, are but limited in extent. 
In the north-west of Germany there are wide tracts of bog 
and heath, while of the great inland district east of the 
Elbe, and of the plain of Hungary, a considerable part is 
sandy and naturally unproductive. The soil, however, is, 
almost everywhere, susceptible of improvement. By 
thorough culture, good irrigation, and the addition of 
valuable chemicals to develop its nutritive qualities, it 
has been so much improved, that, in many places, its 
original poverty can hardly be traced beneath the rich 
cultivation. In other points, as in this, the natural gifts of 
Central Europe are not in general brilliant and super- 
abundant, but solid and capable of being developed by 
earnest endeavour. 

Central Europe has no superfluity of minerals, least of 
all of precious metals, but the German miner has dealt 



6 CENTRAL EUROPE 

so perseveringly and so circumspectly with the modest 
mineral wealth allotted to him, that in matters of mining 
and metallurgy he has been the teacher of other nations. 
Fossil fuels and iron alone, which supply laborious 
nations with the best foundation for industrial progress, 
are present in rich abundance. 

The rivers of Central Europe are neither so free from 
obstacles as the Seine and the Thames, nor so secure from 
obstruction by frost ; but care and attention have made 
them navigable for the most active internal commerce of the 
continent, and rendered them a very valuable complement 
of the extensive network of railways. Internal com- 
munication being thus developed, it becomes possible to 
utilise to the utmost the advantages of a position in the 
midst of the countries of the continent, and in close 
contact with all the actively progressive nations. With all 
of these Central Europe is engaged in a constant inter- 
change of products and labour. 

Unquestionably, the violent interference of neighbours 
in her affairs has also caused Central Europe often enough 
to feel severely that there are drawbacks in being thus 
enclosed by other nations. The land being broken up 
by complex mountain systems and by rivers flowing in 
different directions, political division, for a time, became 
excessive, and long prevented sufficient accumulation of 
strength for effectually repelling such interference, even 
when it came from lesser powers. Only a conviction 
that no sacrifice is too great for the maintenance of 
independence and a willingness to accept heavy military 
burdens can save the peoples of Central Europe from the 
recurrence of this danger. Certain it is that these peoples, 
with their flower of physical strength hardened by climate 
and steeled by toil, have the power, if they earnestly choose 
to exercise it, of securing peace to all Europe. 

In this peace Central Europe herself has the most 
vital interest, for only while peace continues can Central 
Europe hope to lighten, and even, by the expenditure of 
much exertion, to remove the pressure of an additional 
drawback belonging to her central position — that of 



POSITION AND WORLD-RELATION 7 

exclusion from the open ocean. The Black Sea, indeed, 
provides the lower districts of the Danube with an 
important channel for the exchange of their agricultural 
products against the wares of the outer world. To 
Hungary also it has become of growing importance, 
since the difficulties of navigation at the Iron Gates were 
overcome. But even for Hungary, and still more for 
Austria, approach to the inner corner of the Adriatic is 
of more value than access to the remote cul-de-sac of the 
Pontic basin. If the Danubian Empire is to retain its 
position in the world, Trieste and Fiume are indispensable 
outlets. Spalato and Ragusa, too, are destined to become 
so. In our days the Dalmatian shore must not remain a 
coast with no country behind it. But however brilliantly 
the prospects opening here may be fulfilled, the Adriatic 
itself will still be but a branch of an inland sea, whence 
the ways of access to the ocean remain long, narrow, and 
held by other hands. 

To the greater part of Central Europe the access of 
Germany to the sea is of infinitely more importance. 
This access is modest enough. The maritime position of 
Germany is by nature more unfavourable than that of any 
other country of Western Europe. As far as the trade of the 
world is concerned, the Baltic Sea, even since the opening 
of the Baltic and North Sea Canal, can only be considered 
as holding a secondary place. It is only the ports of 
the North Sea whose situation enables them to compete 
directly upon the Atlantic — the principal stage of inter- 
national commerce — with the modern maritime nations. 
But enterprise, perseverance, and integrity have so utilised 
the modest opportunities allotted by nature, that the 
German merchant-service stands second in Europe only 
to that of Britain, while France and Spain, two countries 
far more favoured in this respect by nature, have been 
far outstripped in commercial development by Germany. 
If we add the old and well-established sea traffic of 
Holland, we shall find the position of Central Europe in 
international commerce far more favourable than could be 
expected from the extent, position, and nature of its coast- 



8 CENTRAL EUROPE 

lines. The Netherlands have retained valuable colonial 
possessions, won in their brilliant period of maritime 
supremacy, and brought by intelligent tendance to a high 
degree of agricultural prosperity. Late in the day, when 
the world had already been allotted, Germany too entered 
the field of colonial enterprise, and now devotes herself to 
systematic development of those rather poorly endowed 
foreign possessions over which her flag flies. 

When we perceive with what activity the peoples of 
Central Europe labour to develop the natural gifts of their 
countries, we are confirmed in the conviction that this 
centre of Europe is great enough, and favoured enough 
by position, climate, nature, and conformation, to hold its 
independent place for ever among the great powers of the 
world. This conviction and a perception of how desirable 
is peaceful co-operation between the natural and national 
forces here lying side by side, can have no better basis 
than a consideration of the territory, which, despite all 
internal variations, despite all links with neighbour 
territories, will be found to possess marked features of 
geographical unity. 

We have to consider a superficial area of 626,000 
square miles, inhabited by over 131 millions of human 
beings, and in order to get a connected and comprehensive 
view of facts, we shall find ourselves compelled from time 
to time to extend our examination across the borders of 
adjoining countries into France, Denmark, and Russia. 

Note on Authorities. — B. G. Mendelssohn's "German Europe," 1836, 
gives an able general view of Central Europe, illuminated by historical 
insight. 

The Landerkunde von Eurofia, edited by A. Kirchhoff, 1887-1893, 
contains a " Physical Sketch of Central Europe," by A. Penck. In this 
standard work, also, the German Empire, the Netherlands, Belgium, 
and Luxemburg, are dealt with by Penck ; Austria and Hungary by 
A. Supan ; Roumania by Paul Lehmann ; and Servia, Bulgaria, and 
Montenegro by Theobald Fischer. In the description of Switzerland 
Egli was assisted by the geologist, A. Heim, and by Billwiller, the 
expert upon climate. 

The most precise and trustworthy statistical information is given 
annually by the Gothaische Genealogische Hofkalender. 



POSITION AND WORLD-RELATION 9 

Good general maps of the countries of Central Europe are to be found 
in the large atlases by Stieler (Gotha), Debes (Leipzig), and Kiepert 
{Berlin). 

Carl Vogel's map of the German Empire, on the scale of 1 : 500000 
is a masterpiece of cartographic art. Upon it is founded Richard 
Lepsius's Geological Map of the German Empire, on the same scale. 
In both these maps the territories of neighbouring countries are drawn 
and coloured. 



10 



CENTRAL EUROPE 




CHAPTER II 

GENERAL OUTLINES OF THE PHYSICAL HISTORY 

Unity does not exclude division. The separation of 
the natural provinces of Central Europe arises from 
the course of evolution through which its surface has 
passed. The first stages, indeed, are obscure. The 
Carboniferous Age affords the earliest glimpse of a low- 
lying continent recently emerged from the sea (Fig. 2). 
The position of the marine strata in the coal-deposits 
of Carinthia, Upper Silesia, Westphalia, Belgium, and 
northern France shows how the coast -line of this 
land — upon which the coal -plants grew — fluctuated 
during the period when the coal-measures of Bohemia, 
Saxony, Thuringia, the Saar, the Black Forest, and the 
Western Alps were forming in its interior basins. This 
continent was the workshop in which great mountains 
were fashioned. The crust of the earth shrank to- 
gether in folds of Alpine altitude. But the long course 
of time once more destroyed these heights, and their 
trace can only be followed by means of the steeply- 
inclined strata marking their now level bases. From 
the Cevennes to the Hartz, the old deposits strike con- 
sistently to the north-east. In Belgium alone their trend 
turns to the north-west, parallel with the old folding of 
Brittany, while through the greater part of the district 
of the Sudetes, it runs south-eastward. 

Long periods followed, in which slight risings and 
depressions allowed the sea to flow in now upon one, 
now upon another part of the Central European con- 
tinent ; triassic, Jurassic, and cretaceous formations spread 
their deposits over wide and varying regions, and when 
the sea once more retreated these deposits were in 



12 



CENTRAL EUROPE 



part destroyed and in part remained to cover large tracts 
of tableland. These tablelands at one time extended 
unbroken from France to Central Germany, from the 
upper Moselle to the Saale, and from the middle 
reaches of the Weser to the Danube. From northern 
Bohemia, too, at one period a great plateau of sand- 
stone, no less uniform than the plain of North Bulgaria, 
stretched into the adjoining parts of Saxony and Silesia. 




y^^Corxtu^entCLL Area v\-UA CocUBasuw. 



Fig. 2. — The Continental Area of Central Europe in Carboniferous Times. 



The further shaping of the land, however, was not 
left solely to the action of the waters ; disturbances of 
the earth occurred in the Tertiary Period and produced 
decisive effects upon the configuration of the whole sur- 
face. All parts were not equally affected ; all did not 
yield equally to the forces brought to bear upon them. A 
contrast was produced between the north and the south. 
The southern part of Central Europe was puckered 
up by the gradual contraction of the earth's crust 
into curved mountain-chains, while at the same time 
marked irregularity was imparted to its contour by the 



OUTLINES OF THE PHYSICAL HISTORY 13 

breaking away of great areas of depression on the con- 
cave side of the mountain curves. Quantities of volcanic 
rock were thrown up from the clefts around the deep 
hollow of the Hungarian plain and formed in some 
places gentle hills and in others considerable mountains. 
In the Middle Tertiary (Miocene) Period, while the 
folding of the mountains was still going on, the great 



H/. W/ncfgS//e 



JVort/i 



Wasen 




Hosp/ce 



South, 



A/to/o 




KXS%$>3 Porpfu/ry 



Sericite orcd Jforn, - 
-blende Schist 



Triassic 



\\\\\\N Gneiss and. Mica Schist |-_t--[ Jurassic 

\- 1 JSocene 



Fig. 3. — Section through the Gotthard showing Folded Mountains. 

Alpine and Carpathian ring was surrounded on its outer 
side by a sea which filled the valley of the Rhone and 
Saone, covered the high plateaux of Switzerland, Bavaria, 
and Austria, flowed across Moravia, and passing through 
the Moravian Gate into Galicia, gained an outlet, by 
way of the Bukowina and Bessarabia, into the Pontic 
basin. 

This sea, whose dry bed is furrowed at the present 
day by great rivers, cut off the Alps and Carpathians 
from the more northerly portion of Europe, for which 



14 



CENTRAL EUROPE 



a different fate was in store. No mountain foldings 
befell it ; on the contrary large and deep fractures, 
running in fairly straight lines, cut it up into great 
blocks, each of which moved independently and rose 
or fell in varying ways before finally settling down at 
very unequal altitudes. The block traversed by the Lower 
Rhine was divided by a great crevasse from the district 
of the Upper Rhine. This district itself was broken by 




Fig. 3a. — Section through the basin of the Upper Rhine 
showing Block Mountains. 

fissures that ran nearly due south : its middle portion 
sank into a hollow and formed the great rift-valley of 
the Upper Rhine, between the two high-lying blocks of 
the Vosges and the Black Forest. (Fig. 3a) 

Exactly the reverse occurred in the case of the 
Thuringian forest, which rose on high like a narrow 
eyrie between the sunken plains of Franconia and 
Thuringia. The interior of Bohemia formed a depres- 
sion along cracks that cut off the southern border of 
the Erzgebirge and the Sudetes. A further character 
of variety was given to the contour of the land in this 
part by volcanic influences. A broad belt of trachytic 



OUTLINES OF THE PHYSICAL HISTORY 15 

and basaltic elevations runs through the mountains 
of the Lower Rhine to Hesse, and another zone of 
basaltic heights from North Bohemia, through Lusatia 
into Silesia. The surface of this fractured country 
did not, however, present an altogether irregular aspect. 
Some signs of unity and of mass were imparted by 
the prevalence of two main lines of direction (N.-W. 
and N.-E.) in the network of faultings, and still more 
decidedly by the clear differentiation of three zones. 
The two great southerly basins — Bohemia and South 
Germany — in which the waters of the Elbe and the 
Rhine are collected, are divided from the still lower- 
lying regions of the north by a central belt of high 
ridges stretching from the Ardennes to the Sudetic 
Mountains. 

The North German lowland — although its hidden 
fundamental structures belong to the block country of 
Central Germany — must be regarded as a third in- 
dependent division of Central Europe. Its surface was 
levelled by vast later deposits, arid the influences of the 
great Glacial Period gave it a character of its own. The 
invasion of inland ice from Scandinavia helped to build 
up the diluvial ridges, and the waters into which this ice 
dissolved dug out the broad valleys through which the 
lesser rivers of to-day take a great part of their course. 

Note on Authorities. — For general conceptions — such as the differ- 
ence between Block mountains and Folded mountains — the English 
reader will do well to consult W. M. Davis's " Physical Geography." 

Special information as to the physical development of Central Europe 
may be found, not only in Penck {pp. cit.), but more particularly in 
M. Neumayr's " History of the Earth," second edition, edited by V. Uhlig, 

1895- 

The changes in the divisions of land and water are traced as closely 
as possible throughout all the epochs in Lethtza Geognostica, begun by 
F. Romer, in 1880, and now published by Fritz Freeh. 

All these works have been affected by the stimulating and guiding 
influence of Ed. Suess's Das Antlitz der Erde ("The Face of the 
Globe "). 



CHAPTER III 

THE ALPS AND THE GERMAN DANUBE 

An attempt was at one time made to explain the forma- 
tion of mountains by the hypothesis of perpendicular 
upheavals along straight lines. Of all mountains the 
Alps can least be made to accord with such a theory. 
Their great curve faking every conceivable direction, first 
led to the recognition of the characteristics that mark a 
one-sided, folded mountain chain : — the movement from 
the inner side of the curve, the thrusting forward of the 
fold towards the outer edge, the encroachment of that 
edge upon the land beyond, the arresting power of old 
blocks of upland, and, on the other hand, the fracture 
of strata on the inner side, the formation of long lines 
of crevasse, and the drop of great areas of depression 
to form the plain of the Po. 

But the Alps also taught us how great a part in 
developing the physiognomy of mountains is played by 
the destructive forces of the atmosphere. The action of 
the atmosphere, by carrying away great layers of Jurassic 
and Triassic limestones, and so denuding the highest 
mountain belt of its more recent covering formations, has 
imparted to the scenery of the Alps one of its most charac- 
teristic features, the exposure of a broad Central Zone of very 
ancient rocks — granite, gneiss, and crystalline schists. It 
may be calculated that at one time a mass of deposits 
more than 6000 feet thick arched over the mighty massifs 
of the central zone, and that but for denudation the Alps 
would rear their heads to a height of above 20,000 feet. 
At more than one point, in crossing the watershed of the 
Alps, we may still behold light grey caps of Triassic or 

Jurassic limestone crowning the highest points above us. 

16 



THE ALPS AND THE GERMAN DANUBE 17 

In the Grisons, indeed, we may cross from the Rhine to 
the Engadine, and from the Engadine into the neighbour- 
hood of the Adda or the Adige, without ever setting foot 
on primitive rocks. This, however, is exceptional. In 
general the denudation has been so complete that the 
central zone of primitive formations stands out distinctly 
from the adjacent outer zones. 

These outer mountains have been called the Lime- 
stone Alps. In the Eastern Alps the central zone of 
crystalline schists is sharply cut off by great longitudinal 
valleys from the proud walls of Triassic limestone, ranged 
in parallel order on the north and south. The especial 
charm of the Eastern Alps lies in the circumstance that, 
after first beholding the majesty and wild beauty of high 
mountains among the pale limestone barriers of the 
northern chain, we come next to the great longitudinal 
valley from Arlberg to Semmering, full of life, friendly 
habitations, and busy traffic, whence, rising by the trans- 
versal valleys of the central zone, we ascend into the 
world of glaciers that girdle the summits with frozen 
pendants and crown them with diadems of snow. Again, 
having descended from these heights towards the south, 
we pause amid the vineyards of warm valleys, sheltered 
from the north, before passing on between the massive 
limestone blocks and dolomitic ridges of the southern 
outer zone. So sharp a division between limestone rock 
and central zone as this which appears in the Eastern 
Alps does not occur again except in the French Alps, 
where the valleys of the Drac and of the middle Isere 
(Graisivaudan) present similar features in the partition of 
the mountains. In Savoy and Switzerland, on the other 
hand, the northern Limestone Alps are welded with the 
central zone. Not only do we find whole mountains of 
limestone set — like the Alps of Fribourg — upon a basis of 
central rock, but we also find, in the mountain sides west 
of the Aar, wedges of Jurassic limestone pushing their way 
like fingers amid the gneiss of the massif. At this point 
the geographical divisions of the mountains cannot claim to 
be supported by the boundaries of geological distribution. 



18 CENTRAL EUROPE 

The contrast between the central zone and the lime- 
stone mountains is not, however, the only feature of the 
longitudinal division of the Alps. A traveller who enters 
them from the Falls of the Rhine or from the Danube 
does not come immediately upon the limestone rocks. 
He finds their bare walls standing in a foreground of 
lower mountains (pre-Alps), rich in woods and pastures, 
built up from the detritus brought down from the Alps. 
Among them are schistose rocks, sandstones, and con- 
glomerates, which the Swiss significantly call " nagel- 
fluh " (nailrock), because innumerable rounded pebbles 
lie embedded in the cement of the rock like finger-nails 
in the flesh of fingers. The strata of this detritus, in- 
volved in the later upheaval of the mountains, have 
become steeply raised, and nothing can help us more 
clearly to realise the immense denudation which the Alps 
have undergone in the course of their existence than the 
exposed deposits of such mountains as the Rigi, the Speer, 
the Pfander, and the Wienerwald, built up of mere Alpine 
debris. 

The destructive operations of water and ice continued 
of course even when the mighty disturbances of the 
earth's crust, by which the proud ranges of the Alps 
were created, had ceased. To them are due the valley 
formations of the mountains and the heaping up of the 
Alpine foreland. This last again is a geological formation 
of no simple kind. It includes deposits cast into the 
depths of a sea which once surrounded the Alps ; others, 
of later date, formed in lakes ; others, again — latest of all, 
and of all of most importance to the landscape — which have 
been brought down by Alpine glaciers of the Glacial 
Epoch, or spread by streams of melting water over a 
region which the glaciers either had not reached or had 
deserted. 

If we divide the whole Alpine region thus — outermost 
zone or " Foreland" (/), Pre-Alps (p), Limestone Alps (/), 
Gneissic Alps(^) — we might expect, in crossing the moun- 
tains from side to side, to pass over seven successive belts 
(/> P> l> gi h Pi /)• B u * even m the Eastern Alps there is 



THE ALPS AND THE GERMAN DANUBE 19 

scarcely a single section in which we should find all these 
belts developing themselves in this succession. In the 
Western Alps the southern outer zones are entirely absent, 
and the inner curving edge exhibits ancient schistose and 
gneissic rocks breaking off suddenly towards the Pied- 
montese area of depression. This conspicuous fact alone 
would form a sufficient ground for dividing the whole 
Alpine range into two wings, the dividing line of which 
follows the Rhine Valley from the Lake of Constance, 
rises with the Hinter Rhine to the Spliigen Pass, and 
goes round the Lake of Como on its way to reach the 
Lake of Lugano and the Lago Maggiore. 

The Western Alps are gathered together into narrower 
compass ; their principal ridges press so closely upon the 
plains of Italy that the contrast between a steep inner and 
a more broadly developed outer slope becomes particularly 
striking ; they include higher mountains, larger snow- 
fields, glaciers more richly fed, and contrasts of altitude and 
climate both greater and more closely contiguous. The 
Eastern Alps are of wider extent ; the river network of the 
Hungarian plain penetrates deeply into them, and divides 
their northern from their southern slope by broad longi- 
tudinal valleys, such as those of the Drave and Save ; the 
mountains drop to more moderate heights and fade away 
by degrees, but the advantage of lower passes is lost in 
the continually recurring necessity for going up and 
down. On the other hand, the absence of great heights 
does not destroy the sublimity of the scenery. The 
variety of conformation is increased by blocks of Triassic 
limestone, whose size can nowhere be matched in the 
Western Alps, and by the predominance over wide areas 
of old volcanic deposits. The presence also of a series 
of strata lying horizontally, free from geological folding, 
and divided only by breaks, brings into the landscape an 
element foreign to the W T estern Alps. 

But all these diversities between Western and Eastern 

Alps are but shades of variety in the character of that 

Alpine landscape which is common to both, and in virtue 

of which these naturally poor mountains exert so irresis- 

3 



20 CENTRAL EUROPE 

tible a charm upon all the cultivated peoples of Europe. 
The mere greatness of the unfolding pageant, the gigantic 
mountains, the extended prospect from their laboriously 
attained summits, give a sense of freedom to spirits habitu- 
ally confined within narrower vistas. Greater pleasure, 
however, will be secured as we dig deeper into the exist- 
ence of these mighty phenomena. The veils spread in 
lower and flatter lands by coverings of earth and vegetation 
are here lifted from the geological formation of the earth's 
surface. In rich variety, each with its own form and 
colour, the rocks stand out to do battle with the powers 
of the air. How various is their structure ! Now great 
masses of rock lie without a trace of stratification ; now 
the strata are plainly distinguishable, resting horizontally 
or steeply upheaved, or like yielding material, pushed 
into great waves, and creased elsewhere into tiny folds. 
Even the unprepared spectator cannot fail to receive 
some notion of the mighty forces which have shaped 
this world of mountains. One part of these forces 
indeed he still beholds working actively, not only in 
great convulsions, as when the earth quakes along the 
fracture lines of the Alpine valleys, or along that of the 
chain's edge at Belluno, Laibach, or Agram, but day 
by day in the silence of lonely valleys may be heard 
the sliding down of fragments worn away from the rock 
by the action of the weather, the rushing of brooks 
that are cutting the ravines deeper, and the thunder of 
avalanches that come sweeping down some mountain side. 
When heavy rains fall on the slopes the torrents fill and 
swell into overwhelming strength. Those who have 
never seen the rubbish heap brought down by an Alpine 
torrent have no conception of the carrying power to 
which running water may attain, especially when, loaded 
with fragments torn from its bed, it flings itself onward in 
a stream of slush. Nature, then, seems to be trying to 
create something half-way between a river and a glacier. 

The glaciers, those imperceptibly moving rivers of ice 
that travel down majestically from large ice-fields, passing 
between forests and coming into the neighbourhood of 



THE ALPS AND THE GERMAN DANUBE 21 

human habitations, are doing their part in the geological 
work still proceeding in the Alps. The spectacle of one 
of these great glaciers seems to threaten that the ice will 
push its way, conquering and destroying, into the domain 
of life and cultivation. When, however, we consider the 
Alps from a wider horizon of time, we become aware that 
exactly the reverse has taken place. The extent of peren- 
nial snow- and ice-fields actually existing in the Alps is 
1400 square miles, and the area of the glaciers of the 



fthone ClcLcier 
■&.'%' Other Glaciers 




Fig. 4. — The Rhone Glacier in the Ice Age. (After Falsan et Chantre.) 



Bernese Oberland — the largest connected expanse of the 
present day — is 180 square miles, but the diluvian 
Alpine glacier system occupied more than 65,000 square 
miles. How modest appears the Aletsch Glacier, with its 
fifteen miles of length and its superficies of forty-five 
square miles, in comparison with the Rhone Glacier of the 
Glacial Period (9270 square miles) which passed — 2600 
feet thick — through the narrow valley of St. Maurice, and 
spread its high front from Lyons to Vienne. This picture 
from the Glacial Period gives us a new standard by which 



22 CENTRAL EUROPE 

to measure the present ; the woodlands clothing the 
mountain sides, and the many-coloured blossoms of the 
meadows, pushing their way to the very edge of the 
snow-fields, seem a triumphal procession of life. 

The snow-fields themselves, in their present restricted 
dimensions, are not, only a boundary of life, but also a 
storehouse whence life draws nourishment and strength. 
In them is concentrated that value which high moun- 
tain lands possess for whole countries as collectors 
of atmospheric moisture. As the air travels up the 
mountains, expanding and growing cooler on its way, 
the moisture contained in it becomes partially condensed, 
by the lower temperature, into clouds and showers. 
While the annual rainfall of North Germany is about 
24 inches, and that of South Germany about 32, 
along the north of the Alps it rises to from 40 to 48 
inches, and at exposed spots in their interior to as high 
as 80. The maximum of 100 inches and over occurs 
not in the Western Alps, but at the inner angle of the 
Adriatic Sea, in the valley of the Tagliamento and in 
the mountains of Carniola. A remarkable contrast to 
the abundance of rain in the higher mountains is afforded 
by valleys that lie sheltered under the lee of high ridges. 
Dry sunny stretches of this kind — islands, as it were, 
in the Alpine ocean of rain — are the upper valley of the 
Durance, Valais, the Engadine, and the upper valley of 
the Inn. Places may be found in these valleys with 
an annual rainfall of 26, and even of 24 inches. As 
the summer temperature of these enclosed longitudinal 
valleys is apt to be particularly high, the climatic con- 
ditions are usually favourable, and the limit of growth 
for trees and all cultivated plants is higher in them than 
elsewhere. 

Soil as well as climate has an important part in fixing 
the limits of the belts of plant life which succeed one 
another below the snowline. The limestone cliffs on 
which the edelweiss flourishes are less favourable to other 
species than the deep mould formed by the decay of 
schistose rocks. When all is said, however, temperature 



THE ALPS AND THE GERMAN DANUBE 



2 3 



remains the chief factor in determining the distribution of 
vegetation. The scale of temperature is lower on the 
northern than on the southern slope of the Alps, and 
the contrast between the two slopes, the impression 
received in passing from the highlands of Bavaria to the 
Lombard border of the Alps, is thus intensified. The 
northern border of the Alps, from the Lake of Constance 
to the basin of Vienna, lacks the vine. From the Lake of 
Geneva only, whose reflected warmth swells the grapes of 
Vaud into sweet juiciness and lends fiery strength to 




Cent B/anche S/'erre Sfatvy/ Saanert 



LaMe 
/Veuchate/ 




ffei.gh.tj offansZ. exaggera,tect S tim&s 

Fig. 5. — Comparative Heights of the Land and Amount of Rainfall. 



their wine, does the culture of the grape push its way far 
up into one valley of the northern slope, into sunny 
Valais. Along the Rhine the vineyards end at Chur. 
At the eastern base of the mountains the vine ventures 
only to moderate heights — barely 1300 feet — in the 
valleys of the Mur, the Drave, and the Save. The 
whole southern border of the Alps, on the other hand, 
is one delightful vineyard, the outposts of which extend 
up the valleys to an altitude of 2600 feet. The two ends 
of the Alpine curve, indeed, touch the region of genuine 



24 CENTRAL EUROPE 

Mediterranean vegetation. The olive fills the hollows 
below Tenda, from Saorgio, and also the plain of Goritz 
on the farthest Polar limit of its distribution. From the 
plain of the Po it is excluded by cold winters ; but a 
few sheltered nooks of the Lombard lakes afford a home 
to it, and to more delicate plants still, belonging 
properly to an evergreen sub-tropical flora. An extreme 
instance of the favourable climate enjoyed by Alpine 
valleys open to the south is presented by Meran, eighty 
miles within the Alpine border. This valley surrounds 
the castle of Tyrol as if with the garden of the Hesperides, 
and delights the Northerner whom delicate health drives 
hither in winter, by offering him the beauties of a far 
more southern landscape. A glorious adornment of the 
southern valleys of the Alps, as well as a treasure for 
their inhabitants, is furnished by the chestnut groves, whose 
leafy domes come to perfection on many a slope above 
the level of the vine. It is true that the chestnut attains 
a fine growth in the milder northern valleys as well as by 
the Lake of Lucerne, but to see it in its full glory, as lord 
of the landscape, we must seek it on the Italian slope of 
the Alps, and especially in the valley nooks of Piedmont. 

While the crop principally cultivated among the vines, 
chestnuts, mulberries, almonds, and figs of the southern 
Alpine valleys is maize, cornfields run up from the north — 
in high valleys to a considerable altitude — between green 
woods and pine forests. The more remote and in- 
accessible any district, the higher does cultivation need to 
push its bold aspirations ; therefore the level of cultivation, 
and with it the level of permanent human habitations, is 
exceedingly variable, ranging in the Eastern Alps from 
3600 to 5900 feet above the sea. In regard to the 
possibilities of agriculture in high mountains, it is a 
remarkable fact that oats and barley are being tried on the 
top of the Brenner (4470 feet high), where potatoes, 
cabbages, and turnips thrive without difficulty. The 
highest wheat-fields lie a little lower, on the sunny 
southern slope. Rye and oats will ripen, even on the 
summit of Mont Genevre (6100 feet high). 



THE ALPS AND THE GERMAN DANUBE 25 

If, in the matter of cereal cultivation, the mountaineers 
often achieve the apparently impossible, the same praise 
cannot be given them as regards their forestry. The 
uppermost line of trees, occupied sometimes by the pine 
(pinus picea), sometimes by the arolla {pinus cembra), 
and sometimes by the larch, has in most places been 
lowered, either by reckless using up of the timber or by 
its actual destruction to make way for pasture-land. The 
authorities recognise the importance of forests, both in 
helping to maintain the soil and in forming a protection 
against the ravages of torrents, and are making efforts to 
preserve the existing woods and to replant, at immense 
trouble, where they have been destroyed, but their efforts 
are only succeeding slowly. The most shocking instance 
of destruction is to be seen in the lacerated slopes of the 
Basses Alpes, but Ticino, Southern Tyrol, and the Vene- 
tian Alps have also in many places been sadly maltreated. 
In Northern Switzerland 4430 feet is considered to be the 
average limit of the beech tree, and that of conifers 6900 ; 
but among the Rhaetian Alps, the larch and pinus cembra 
sometimes reach considerably higher — to as much as 7900 
feet. 

In other parts of the Alps so great a height is scarcely 
attained by the dwarf forms of Scotch fir and juniper, 
which, together with rhododendrons, make up the brush- 
wood of the Alpine region. In summer time the succulent 
herbage affords pasture to herds of cattle, which begin to 
come up in the spring, ascend step by step, and only 
return at Michaelmas to their stalls in the villages. A few 
permanently inhabited dwellings, mountain hotels, and 
hospices of the main Alpine highways are exceptions from 
the usual nomadic conditions, and stand on the heights 
near to the snow-line, while far higher still rise the ob- 
servatories of meteorological science. No other mountains 
number so many of these as the Alps. The highest are 
on Mont Mounier in the Alpes Maritimes, the Great 
St. Bernard, the Sentis, the Zugspitze in Bavaria, the 
Sonnblick in the Tauern, and the Hoch Obir in Carinthia. 
Even on the summit of Mont Blanc self-registering in- 



26 CENTRAL EUROPE 

struments are at work. Thus high does modern science 
push its outposts, and not content with the triumphs wrung 
already, and being wrung every year from investigation of 
the mountains themselves, is now lying in wait that it may 
overhear the laws of the winds. 

The spectacle of the Western Alps as seen from the 
plain of Piedmont is very imposing, because great heights, 
such as the black pyramid of Monte Viso, the broad, 
glacier-covered summit of the Gran Paradiso, and the 
icy wall of Monte Rosa, lie quite close to the outer edge of 
the mountains. These are the dominating heights in the 
three groups of the Cottian, the Graian, and the Pennine 
Alps, which together form the inner zone of primitive 
central massifs. An outer concentric circle, divided from 
them by valleys and passes, is formed on their south, 
west, and north sides by the following groups : the 
Maritime Alps, dark and besprinkled with tiny lakelets 
and diminutive glaciers ; the masses of Oisans, rising, 
rugged and forbidding, from deep valleys, between whose 
summits are sliding down glaciers of the first magni- 
tude ; the Belle Donne heights adorning the horizon of 
Grenoble ; the mass of Mont Blanc ; and the Bernese 
Alps. 

The line of longitudinal valleys, running from the 
neighbourhood of Gap, along the Drac and Isere, by 
Grenoble to Albertville, divides the domain of the central 
masses from that of the Limestone Alps, ranged beyond. 

These limestone mountains separate at Chambery ; only 
one of the branches joins the Alps. A western branch con- 
tinues in due northerly direction, and dropping gradually 
to more moderate heights, forms the Jura chain, whose 
half circle, steep on the inner side from Chambery to 
Schaffhausen, surrounds the outer Alpine zone of Savoy 
and Switzerland. 

North of Chambery the Alpine system thus becomes not 
only broader, but more varied in its kinds of soil and more 
important to social and political life. The tableland of 
Switzerland interposes its independent productive domain 
between the rugged, highest mountains and the gentler 



THE ALPS AND THE GERMAN DANUBE 27 

forms of the Jura, whose blue belt, long drawn out and vary- 
ing but little in elevation, stretches along the north-western 
horizon. Behind the foremost ridge numerous others rise 
in parallel order, divided by high valleys and getting lower 
and lower, flatter and flatter, until the last waves of the 
swelling Jura die out on the Jura plateau of France. The 
heights are moderate, but the number of ridges is a hin- 
drance to traffic, hardly mitigated by the occurrence here 
and there of " cluses," narrow gorges which cut across par- 
ticular mountains and allow the rivers to pass from one 
longitudinal valley to another. The Doubs is the most 
striking example of a Jura stream winding to and fro in 
this network of valleys. The limestone of the mountains, 
with its clefts and holes, also affords subterranean pas- 
sages to the rivers. The water from basins without 
any apparent outlet accumulates in caves, and afterwards 
comes to light again with the vigorous flow of real rivers. 
Thus the source of the Orbe proves to be the outflow of 
the Lac du Joux. Many shallow lakes have been con- 
verted into peat bogs, and now form melancholy moor- 
lands enclosed by gloomy woods. The severity of the 
snowy winters, the poverty of the soil, and the contour 
of the thinly populated mountains, combine to form an 
effectual barrier. There are only a few valleys to which 
modern industry, supplemented by water-power, imparts 
a more active life. 

In order to realise vividly the change of character 
undergone by the mountains along the line of their direc- 
tion, we shall do well to consider how differently the 
Rhone and the Rhine find egress. The way of the 
Rhone is barred by Mont Credo. The ravine cut by 
the stream through the innermost rampart of the Jura 
is too narrow to carry the railway, so that a tunnel 
13,000 feet long has had to be bored through the moun- 
tain. No less than six chains of the Jura have to be 
passed on the way to the plain, and the branching and 
winding valley whereby the Rhone achieves this passage 
is forty miles long. But the Rhine finds no chain of the 
Jura at all before it ; the last fold of these mountains 



28 CENTRAL EUROPE 

that attains any considerable height ends beyond the 
Limmat, not far from the hot springs of Baden. All 
that the Rhine has to do is to pass through the table- 
land of the Jura, in which task it succeeds above the 
mouth of the Aar. The falls of the Rhine, however, 
are not here, but far to the east, where the river begins 
to accompany the southern border of the Jura. The 
occurrence of the famous falls is a sheer accident. The 
Rhine at one time filled up its bed with gravels, and, 
flowing over their surface, diverged so far to the right of 
its original course as to approach very closely to the edge 
of the Jura. By-and-by, when it again began to deepen 
its bed, it came down not upon its old hollowed channel, 
but upon the projecting spurs of the Jura, which its fall 
is now in process of eating through. The Jura, in all 
circumstances, and throughout its whole extent, is a clear 
natural boundary, but the Federation has not everywhere 
respected it. 

The core of Switzerland's political strength is to be 
found in the outer circle of the Helvetian Alps, enclosing 
and uniting the sharply divided Alpine valleys that lie 
between the Rhone and the Rhine, and clearly divided in 
turn by the great lakes of those two rivers, from the 
kindred territories of Savoy and Swabia. When the sea 
which once filled this expanse had retired, the direction 
of the oldest watercourses was given by the north- 
westward slope. The broad valleys washed out by these 
streams converted the plateau of sandstone and con- 
glomerates into a mountain tract, whose outline early 
became irregular. The connection between various parts 
of the ancient valley system has been reconstructed by 
geologists from the separated elements. One old course 
of the Rhine is indicated by the succession of valleys 
from Sargans by the lakes of Wallenstadt and Zurich to 
the Limmat. An old middle course of the Reuss passes 
from Brunnen, where the delta of the Muotta interrupted 
it, past Schwyz to the lakes of Lowerz and Zug. Towards 
the same basin, too, goes the valley whose upper part is 
crossed by the Briinig railway, and whose lower part is 



THE ALPS AND THE GERMAN DANUBE 29 

filled by the transverse arms of the Lake of Lucerne. 
The lakes of Baldegg and Hallwyl, too, as well as that of 
Sempach, lie in the bed of similar valleys. The closing 
of these valleys and the transformation of some of their 
parts into lakes are due in part to subsequent structural 
disturbances, in part to later deposits and more especially 
to the influences of the Glacial Periods. There was a 




Fig. 6. — Ancient Valleys of the Four Forest Cantons. (After Albert Heim.) 



time when the Alpine valley glaciers covered the whole 
land up to the Jura without a break : when they after- 
wards divided and began to retreat, they left behind, not 
merely occasional erratic blocks, but whole ridges of 
immense moraines and broad strata of rubble. It is 
amazing to see how freshly preserved — like the skin from 
which a snake has just slipped out — are the amphitheatres 
of moraine left by the Rhone glacier at Wangen on the 



3 o CENTRAL EUROPE 

Aar, and by the Reuss glacier at Mellingen. The terraces, 
by which many of the more deeply cut modern rivers 
are bordered, are also made of boulders and pebbles 
brought down by old glacier streams. Sometimes there 
will be several such terraces, one above another : at 
Schaffhausen there are as many as five. These are due 
either to several glacial periods, or to the repeated advance, 
during the same period, of a glacier, always travelling 
down a furrow of erosion cut through still older glacial 
formations. 

The whole landscape of the Swiss highlands thus 
bears upon its face the marks of the Glacial Period. 
To that period the country owes its greatest beauty — 
the abundance of lakes. No doubt it is true that basins 
as large as that of the Lake of Geneva (223 square 
miles in extent and 10 14 feet in depth) and that of 
the Lake of Constance (208 miles in extent and 
827 feet in depth), or as complex in form as that of 
the Lake of Lucerne, must have been formed by some 
structural causes. Swiss geologists hold the opinion — 
which has been thought to be clearly established by 
the case of the Lake of Zurich — that, at some time 
previous to the Glacial Period, a sinking of the Alps, 
and consequently a relative rising of the outer circle, 
occurred, which reversed the gradient of the valley 
openings, and, by damming up the waters, submerged 
part of the valleys and formed the outer lakes of the 
Alps. Even if this were the case, the continuance 
of the lakes must have been promoted by their being 
filled with ice from the glaciers ; in some instances, too, 
a wall of moraine, forming itself around the ice promontory 
of a basin, must have given to the regenerated lake a 
higher level and a greater expanse. Masses of boulders 
from the Aar divided the lake of Biel from that of 
Neuenburg, while the lake of the Aar district was cut 
in two by the delta of Interlaken. 

Viewed from the outer summits of the Alps, these 
numerous lakes afford a delightful prospect ; that from 
the Rigi, in particular, is incomparable. The lakes, 



THE ALPS AND THE GERMAN DANUBE 31 

moreover, are active foci of life. They were so even for 
the poor pile-dwellers who concealed their huts amid 
the arms of the waters. They are so, no less, for the 
world of modern culture. The Lake of Lucerne, shutting 
off the upper valley of the Reuss, was the cradle of Swiss 
freedom. The light of the lakes shines upon the finest 
vineyards and orchards of Switzerland ; in their mirror 
are reflected the leading towns, socially and intellectually, 
of this happy country, whose natural gifts have developed 
under the blessing of a long peace. The land is full of 
verdure and freshness, of busy streams, rich meadows, 
trim little towns, cheerful villages, and scattered country- 
houses, gazing proudly into the ramparts of the Alps. 
Every glance cast up at them strengthens the assurance : 
" God has built us a castle of freedom." 

In the inmost heart of the high mountains, three great 
rivers, flowing through the three largest outer lakes, the 
Rhone, the Reuss, and the Rhine, almost meet at their 
fountains. The transversal valleys of all three, which are 
filled with new land, formed at the head of the lakes 
by the rivers themselves, rise gently at first, then close 
in, and become gorges, those of the Rhine being gay 
and pleasant, those of the Rhone dark and gloomy, and 
those of the Reuss wild and impressive. All these trans- 
versal openings end in that chain of longitudinal valleys, 
which together form the main central road into the 
fastnesses of the Swiss mountains. The bend of the 
Rhone at Martigny, and that of the Rhine at Chur, are 
130 miles apart. Seventy-five of these miles lie in Valais, 
up to the Rhone glacier ; forty in the Bundenerthal of the 
Hither Rhine ; and fifteen in the Urserenthal, where the 
Reuss rises. This river collects its springs on the green 
plain of Andermatt before it rushes, foaming in wild 
waterfalls, through the terrible ravine of the Schollenen, 
into its transversal valley. The unity of the great inner 
line of valleys is of importance to the coherence of Switzer- 
land, and facilitates communication between the cantons. 

North of the Valais the peaks of the Bernese Oberland, 
carrying the richest glacier field of the Alps, rise majes- 



32 CENTRAL EUROPE 

tically above their neighbours. How differently, however, 
would they stand out if the thick deposit of limestone 
distinguishable in the valleys and on the outer hill tops 
around had remained on their summits. 

If we stand on the threshold of Valais, between the 
proud entrance columns of the Dent du Midi and the Dent 
de Morcles, an inspection of their foundations will readily 
convince us that at this point the rocks of the Mont Blanc 
group extend across the Rhone, and dipping under the 
Alps of Fribourg, form a bridge of connection with those 
of the Bernese district. In length and breadth as well as 
in complexity of parts the Mont Blanc group falls below 
the Bernese Oberland, but the spectacle of Europe's 
highest peak (15,781 feet high) and the glaciers belonging 
to it is so striking that the lover of the Alps cannot be 
contented with a mere visit to the valley of Chamouni, 
but must make the circuit of the whole group, — " Le tour 
du Mont Blanc." This circuit is much easier than the 
corresponding circuit of Monte Rosa, since that highest 
point on the Pennine Alps, while rising from valleys 
equally deep, is situated among much higher ridges : the 
eastern descent towards Macugnaga is perhaps the most 
beautiful close of a valley to be found in Europe. The 
steep fall, on the south, into the Val d'Aosta, and the 
connected sheet of glaciers on the north, render the 
Pennine chain and the Mont Blanc group the most 
inaccessible portions of the Alps. Even the Great St. 
Bernard, upon whose crest antiquities have been found, 
proving it to have been much travelled in early times, is 
still without a carriage-way. One of the largest stretches 
without a carriage road in the whole Alps, lies between 
the Little St. Bernard and the Simplon- — a distance of 
eighty miles. The Simplon is the first of a series of 
passes — the St. Gotthard, the Lukmanier, and the San 
Bernardino — which lead from the valley of the Rhone, 
the Reuss, and the Vorder and Hinter Rhines, into the 
four most important divisions of the Upper Ticino district. 
This whole sheaf of roads, as well as the railway which 
already passes under the St. Gotthard and that which will 



THE ALPS AND THE GERMAN DANUBE 33 

shortly pass under the Simplon, converges upon Milan. 
The fact that so many roads here lie so near together, 
bears witness to the comparative lowness of these moun- 
tains near the end of the Western Alps. Only the 
Adula group, at the source of the Hinter Rhine, can show 
any considerable glaciers. Immediately to the east lie the 
San Bernardino and the Spliigen, important links between 
the valley of the Hinter Rhine and the two great Lom- 
bard Lakes. Between these two passes we may hesitate, 
when we are setting the boundary between the Western 
and the Eastern Alps. 

At the present time Chur appears the natural centre 
of the complex system of Rhine valleys, but this was n t 
always the case (Fig. 7). Traces can still be distinguished 
of an earlier condition of the country's surface, by which 
the centre was thrown more to the north, in the direction 
of Ragatz. In the Tertiary Period, when the planes of the 
valleys were some 1600 to 2000 feet higher, the aban- 
doned high valley of the Heath of Lenz, between Chur 
and Tiefenkasten, formed the middle section in the main 
trunk of this valley system. The line of transversal valleys 
between Chur and the Lake of Constance was thus 
continued southward to the source of the Oberhalbstein 
Rhine at the Septimer Pass. At that period the Hinter 
Rhine did not end at Reichenau, but flowed northward 
on a higher valley plane to the Kunkels Pass, and, fol- 
lowing a valley which has now been succeeded by that 
of the lesser Tamina, did not join the main river till 
Ragatz. At Pfeffers its stream cut a deep and narrow 
gorge in the wide expanse of the old valley. Thus the 
erosion of two streams working backward from Chur and 
Thusis cut out the two longitudinal valleys of the Rhine 
and of the Albula at Schyn Pass, and tapped the old 
transverse valleys at Reichenau and Tiefenkasten. The 
dry beds of these streams, at the Heath of Lenz and at 
the Kunkels Pass, are broad and lie high ; they offer a 
striking contrast with the later narrow gorge into whose 
shadows the admiring traveller gazes down from the Via 
Mala or the Schyn Pass. Clear examples of the conflict 



34 



CENTRAL EUROPE 



for the drainage are also furnished by other streams in 
this district. The Landquart, intervening from behind, 
robs the Davos Landwater of its sources of supply at 
Klosters. The swift Mera, too, forces backwards its 
invading way through the slowly retreating cliff of the 
Maloggia Pass towards the Engadine, on whose flat 
surface the Inn is dammed up into lakes by rubbish- 




FlG. 7. — Ancient Valleys of the Grisons. (After Albert Heim.) 



heaps from side streams. The farthest springs of the 
Mera were at one time sources of the Inn. 

At the sources of the Inn we come to the basin of 
the Danube, by whose extensive longitudinal valleys 
and eastward flowing waters the greater part of the 
Eastern Alps is dominated. The Engadine, fifty miles 
long, which forms the Swiss portion of the Inn valley, 
lies on the surface of the Rhaetian Alps, the most 



THE ALPS AND THE GERMAN DANUBE 35 

massive part of the central zone, and the only part in 
which the valleys occupy levels considerably above the 
sea. The valley plane of Pontresina, the spot in the 
Upper Engadine most frequented by tourists, lies as high 
as the top of the Rigi. An easy walk brings the traveller 
to the Languard, a peak better situated than any other to 
afford a view of the Rhaetian Alps in their entirety. 
Immediately opposite towers the icy Bernina group 
(13,297 feet high); on the north, across the Inn, lies 
the North Rhaetian ridge, deeply indented by passes ; on 
the south-east, the snow peaks of the Ortler (12,802 feet 
high) and of the Adamello, jutting far out towards the 
plain of the Po, shine from the other side of the Valteline. 
Thus we recognise unmistakably the way in which the 
Rhaetian Alps are divided into three by the valleys of the 
Inn and of the Upper Adda, whence the highest carriage- 
road of the Alps passes over the Stelvio into the Adige 
district- 

The tendency of the central zone to divide into 
massive mountain blocks united by a high foundation is 
conspicuous in this district, and is strikingly repeated on 
the other side of the eastern Swiss frontier by the broad, 
high-lying valley of the Reschen Scheideck. On its flat 
surface it collects the sources of the Adige, and sends out 
a brook on the other side to join the Inn at the gorge 
of Finstermunz. The drop of this broad saddle (4901 feet 
high), and the still deeper cut of the Brenner Pass (4495 
feet high), isolate the group of the Oetzthal Alps to quite 
an exceptional degree. Valleys running northward open 
up their interior as far as the main ridge, clothed with 
glaciers, which drops sharply to the south. 

The importance of the Brenner is increased by its 
being the last carriage-way over the Alps for more than a 
hundred miles. The chain of the Hohen Tauern stretches 
through that distance, and joins together the last great 
glacier fields of the Alps in the groups of the Zillerthal, 
the Venediger, and the Gross-Glockner. The sharp ridge 
of the Gross-Glockner (12,461 feet high) looks down upon 
one of the most beautiful glaciers of the continent. The 
4 



36 CENTRAL EUROPE 

last snow-peaks surround the angle of the Mur, and are 
succeeded by the bifurcation of the central zone into 
chains of rapidly diminishing height. 

The mountain masses of the central zone include 
almost all the glaciers of the Eastern Alps, — a total ex- 
panse of not less than 674 square miles ; their peaks 
throughout overtop those in the outer zones by 1300 to 
2600 feet. And yet it is these outer zones that must be 
visited if we would find landscapes that the western Alps 
cannot equal. The abundant lakes of the western Alps 
are all upon the north-western border. The openings of 
Alpine valleys in Piedmont exhibit no great sheets of water, 
but only small pools lying in the moraine amphitheatres of 
the two Doras. How greatly is this landscape surpassed 
by that of the Lombard lake districts between Ticino and 
Mincio ! The deep basins, whose beds lie far lower than 
the level of the sea, have often been compared with the 
fiords of the north. Like those, they were once full of 
ice. Their southern ends are surrounded by moraines 
which form wide stretches of hill country. Ice it was 
which brought down from the Tyrolese mountains those 
blocks of which the heights south of the Lake of Garda 
are built ; those heights on which the battle of Sol- 
ferino decided the fate of Lombardy. But how wide is 
the difference between the gloomy landscape of Norwegian 
mountain shores and the lake strands of Lombardy, whose 
rocky nooks are filled with the silver grey of the olive,, 
and even with the shining foliage and golden fruits of 
oranges, citrons, and lemons. 

The mountains among which these Italian lakes lie be- 
neath the smile of heaven are the beginning of the southern 
limestone Alps. Even here, however, a certain inter- 
mixture of volcanic rocks is to be found. Across this 
varied geological map the Lake of Lugano stretches its. 
arms indifferently, running with equal disregard through 
hard rocks and soft. Here the mountains are broken up 
by a complex system of valleys, but between the plain, 
and the vine-growing valley of the Valteline they re-unite n 
and form the mighty chain of the Alps of Bergamo.. 



THE ALPS AND THE GERMAN DANUBE 37 

As it runs round the southern base of the Adamello group, 
the ridge of limestone mountains grows narrower ; but it 
spreads into breadth and into fine outlines at the wide 
bay of the Adige inside the obtuse angle that would be 
formed by lines drawn from Brescia to Meran and thence 
to Toblach. At their northern end, however, near Bozen, 
the limestone and dolomite mountains rest upon the high 
platform of a porphyry bed which is 1700 to 2300 feet 
thick, and has an area of more than 600 square miles. 
Upon the undulating surface of this abundantly wooded 
plateau, deeply cut by the narrow gorges of the tribu- 
taries of the Adige, may be found the most varied forma- 
tions lying quite close together ; softly shaped lumps of 
volcanic tufa, overgrown with a carpet of swelling turf, 
lie side by side with abrupt dolomite cliffs, the work 
of coral animals in the Triassic sea. A belt of limestone 
and dolomite rocks of similar origin runs, like the ring 
of steep coral rocks round Australian islands, along the 
south as well as the north of the Tauern. Along the 
horizon of Bozen the multiform variety of these dolomite 
rocks may be seen in the mighty flat-topped stump of the 
Schlern and the teeth and needles of the Rosengarten. 
These reefs have generally no trace of stratification ; and 
where stratified rocks rest upon them they lie unbroken 
and horizontal. This circumstance deepens the surprising 
impression produced by these mountain blocks, which 
are devoid of folds and broken only by lines of fracture 
and displacement. The silver diadem of a glacier marks 
the Vedretta Marmolata (11,024 feet high) as the queen of 
the district. 

The whole varied mountain world of South Tyrol, 
with its convergent valleys, is seamed through the centre 
by the broad way of the Adige, closed above Verona by 
gorges. " Strada d'Allemagna " led from Venice along 
the Piave, and this road, which travelled between rocks 
rising high towards heaven, found an easy way out by 
the valley of Ampezzo. It emerges on the field of Tob- 
lach (3967 feet high), lying in the midst of the Puster- 
thal, on the Pontic and Adriatic watershed, whence the 



38 CENTRAL EUROPE 

Rienz flows westward to the Eisack and the Adige, while 
the Drave flows eastward. Both these rivers water the 
great longitudinal valley that forms the boundary between 
the central zone and the southern limestone Alps, serv- 
ing as a connecting road along the south between the 
Austrian Alpine districts. 

The course of the Drave valley opens to the Klagenfurt 
basin, which is the heart of Carinthia. In summer the 
clear waters of the Lake of Worth, untouched by the 
turbid glacier streams of the neighbouring Drave, attract 
visitors from many parts to bathe in them or to sail upon 
them. In the winter, however, a crust of ice covers 
the face of the waters ; for in that season a lake of cold 
air, colder than that of the mountain slopes above, fills 
the valley basin of Klagenfurt, and turns it into a little 
Siberia amid the Eastern Alps. 

The Carinthian basin is accessible for traffic, for it is 
crossed by the railway from Vienna to Venice, whose 
rails obtain easy access to the valley of the Tagliamento 
by the Pass of Pontebba. The limestone mountains 
overshadowing this pass are dominated by the Triglav, 
the proud south-eastern final pillar of the Alps. The 
rough tablelands extending from its foot already distinctly 
exhibit the characteristics of the Karst, in their moderate 
height, their caverns, and their hidden water-courses. 
Thus the closed basin of Laibach, in the centre of 
Carniola — not less than the bays of Karlstadt and Graz 
opening widely towards the Hungarian plain — lies on the 
very limit of the Alps. 

The easternmost of the Alpine railways, the line Trieste 
to Vienna, touches Laibach and Graz without encounter- 
ing any serious difficulty before the Semmering Pass on the 
height leading over to the plain of Lower Austria. This 
pass is important also because it marks the eastern end of 
that great chain of valleys which forms to the geologist's 
eye the approximate, but to the geographer's the perfectly 
clear and connected boundary between the Central Alps 
and the northern secondary zone of the Eastern Alps. 

The Inn, Salzach, and Enns rivers, which are the 



THE ALPS AND THE GERMAN DANUBE 39 

principal elements in this long succession of valleys, 
have each an upper reach, running longitudinally with 
the chain, and a lower reach carrying them crosswise 
through the Limestone Alps to the plain. The trans- 
verse valleys (Figs. 8, 9), which are older than the 
longitudinal reaches, divide the Northern Alps into 
sharply isolated groups, which to the west form sharp 
ridges and slender pointed peaks, as do the Wetterstein 




Fig. 8. — Ancient Transverse Valleys of the Northern Alps. 



Mountains, which include the Zugspitze, the highest 
peak in the German Empire. It is only in Salz- 
burg and Upper Austria that mountain blocks prevail 
with a broader ground plan and with flatter tops ; their 
surface, however, is rendered almost impassable by the 
unevenness of the " Karren " — irregularly shaped holes 
and channels which owe their existence to the unequal 
decomposition of the limestone by the action of stand- 



4° 



CENTRAL EUROPE 



ing or running water. The ground looks as if sulphuric 
acid had rained upon it. Not without reason does one 
of these, blocks bear the name of the Dead Mountain. 
Amid their wild limestone formations the Northern Alps 
have no lack of rich meadow lands. There are extensive 
woods, too, both in the mountains and more particularly 
on the belt of sandstone and schist which forms their 
external border. This belt is particularly broad in 
Austria, but is seldom so completely wanting as to 

permit the proud limestone 
mountains to come close 
down to the foreland. 

A great charm is im- 
parted to the scenery by 
the lakes, which, like the 
Konigsee and the lake of 
Hallstatt, below the Watz- 
mann and the Dachstein, 
may be formed by closed 
basins penetrating between 
steep mountains ; or, like 
the Plansee and Achensee, 
fill up a stretch of valley 
closed in by heaps of 
debris; or, after the fashion 
of the Walchensee, look up 
out of a deeply eroded basin between wooded heights, 
like a dark eye beneath bushy eyebrows. The larger 
number are gathered together in the Traun district of 
Upper Austria. It is here, in the Salzkammergut, that the 
Schafberg, the Austrian Rigi, stands surrounded by lakes, 
some of which — like the outer lakes of Switzerland— fill 
the outlets of the valleys and belong half to the moun- 
tains and half to the foreland. 





/Vsalzburg 


Reichenhad 




c 


fl Jfondgsee |§|| 






^ag£--~ " J^tsvzgau j m 


W Jf 




GrrQlackh/r 


r Gasteinl ( 


Miles 


(_ AnXoi/e£ 


10 CO 



Fig. 9. — The Conquest of the Pinzgau 
by the Salzach. 



The glacial epoch which down to these basins filled 
the valleys with mighty ice-streams, left also far outside 
on the Bavarian foreland some beds of lakes hollowed 
by the erosive power of great glaciers. The lake of Starn- 



THE ALPS AND THE GERMAN DANUBE 41 

berg was originally the middle one of three sister lakes. 
The Isar began by eating through the bank The Alpine 
of the eastern lake — the basin of Wolf- Foreland and 
ratshausen — then emptied it by flowing the German 
through it. The western lake, however, Danube. 
the Ammersee, still remains and marks the last point of 
advance of a diluvial glacier. 

The largest glacier received by the Alpine foreland 
came, of course, from the Rhine valley. The most 
advanced moraines reach to the Upper Danube. The 
source of the Danube lay, at that time, within the icy 
portals of the Rhine glacier. It was only the moraines 
left behind after its withdrawal which formed the water- 
shed between the Rhine and the Danube. 

While the moraines of the Rhine glacier come into 
immediate contact with the Swabian Jura, and while the 
deposits of the glaciers themselves and of those of their 
melting waters are mingled upon the same ground, the 
high plain of Bavaria along the Isar is divided more clearly 
into zones, and offers three distinct types of landscape. 
The most southerly, extending from the foot of the Alps 
to beyond the lakes, is the hill country of the moraines, 
with little pools and dried basins of peat. Next, on the 
north, and sloping slightly northward, comes the tract of 
gravels which, brought down by the melting glacier waters, 
and finding no distinct limit, were spread out widely and 
scattered over the plain. This bed of gravels is extremely 
pervious to the water, which percolating through the 
whole stratum, runs away in a hidden sheet underground. 
The surface is poor in water and unfruitful, but mostly 
covered with woods. Only in valleys that penetrate 
lower, and on the northern border of the bed where it 
grows thin before disappearing, does the water come near 
to the surface, which it turns into a swamp. It is in this 
way that the great bogs of Dachau and Erding, which 
must not be mistaken for silted-up lakes, have been 
formed. In the midst of this poor and thinly-peopled 
rubble field, between its wooded south and its marshy 
north, stands Munich. Still farther to the north the 



4 2 



CENTRAL EUROPE 



substratum of old hill land merges, and forms a third 
zone reaching to the Danube, strongly moulded -by waters, 
and presenting a fertile, well-cultivated landscape. On 
the meridian of Ratisbon, where the Alpine foreland 
reaches its maximum breadth of ninety miles, this division 
is most clearly distinguishable. It prevails also in the Aus- 
trian foreland. There, however, the hill country obtains 




/" Limit of Morainic Scenery (younger Moraines we// preserved). 

f " Limit of the £/c/er Moraines (ha/f c/esfroyec/). 

W. The drainec/ La/(e of l/Vo/fra/shactsen. 

/. Wa/chen See. 3. Bog of Dachau. 

2. Hoc he/ See. 4. Bog of Frofinj 



Fig. io. — Lakes and Moraines of the German Foreland of the Alps. 



a greater width in the Hausruck. The moraine land, on 
the contrary, shrinks more and more. Even at the Enns 
it draws back into the interior of the Alpine valley. At 
Melk, where the Danube enters the granites of the Bohe- 
mian group, its southern bank is divided from the edge of 
the Alps by a strip of gravels only twelve kilometres wide. 
The division of the Alpine foreland into provinces 
has naturally been founded, not upon the longitudinal 
zones of geological formation, but upon the transverse 



THE ALPS AND THE GERMAN DANUBE 43 

course of the rivers which run across the high plain to 
the Danube. The tumultuous course, indeed, even of 
those few which are navigable beyond the edge of the 
Alps, prevents navigation among the mountains ; most of 
them are useful for no other traffic t'han the floating down 
of wood, but it is precisely their value as obstacles to 
communication that renders them acceptable as boun- 
daries. Thus the Lech served to divide Swabia and 
Bavaria ; the Inn and the Salzach are at the present day 
boundaries of the Empires, while the Enns separates Upper 
from Lower Austria. The history of the many peoples 
and armies who have streamed from east to west through 
the Alpine foreland makes of these rivers, as it were, rungs 
of a ladder which the invader must firmly grasp before 
he can rest upon them ; and undoubtedly the position 
between the high mountains, the Lech and the Danube, 
has contributed to form a definite kernel round which 
the largest of the South German States have grown. On 
this horizon Munich was the clearly marked centre, away 
from the Danube. 

The stream of the Danube is principally fed from the 
Alps. It emerges as a very modest river from the lime- 
stone bed of the Swabian Jura, whose clefts have 
diminished its supplies ; the large contribution of the 
Iller at Ulm makes a considerable stream of it, and the 
Lech and Isar so strengthen it that at Passau its average 
flow of water exceeds that of the mighty Inn, though in 
summer-time the Inn has the greater quantity of water. 
Fully four-fifths of the wealth of water belonging to the 
Danube at Vienna comes from the Alps. 

The German Danube began as a channel of outflow 
common to the Alps and to the Inferior Ranges of mid 
Germany away to the north. It has probably flowed 
from the beginning on the boundary of the two districts. 
Now, however, it makes its way into the Jura in one or 
two places, and in many cuts off pieces of the Bavarian 
and the Bohemian Forest. These incursions into the 
northern mountain country are explained by the fact that 
the limit of the Alpine foreland formerly lay more to 



44 CENTRAL EUROPE 

the north, over the site of the older mountains, and was 
only pushed so far to the south by the gradual denuda- 
tion of the surface ; thus many reaches of the Danube 

still cling to their original 

c f « course, and pursue their 

7 - rvv ?r^:r^^^^S^&^^^^ work of erosion within 

Fig. ii.— Entry of the Danube the actual limit of the older 

into the Jura. mountains. There, too, the 

a. Former limit of the Alpine Foreland. valW <;rinw<? rhancfpc; from 

b. Limit of the Alpine Foreland to-day. Valley SnOWS CnangeS irom 

c Valley of the Danube. narrow guts to broad and 

marshy basins, where the 
flow of the river is hindered by heaps of gravel brought 
down either by the Danube itself from its swift upper 
reaches or by tributary Alpine streams. Thus arose the 
Donau-Ried at Donauworth, and the Donau-Moos at 
Ingolstadt ; but the third Bavarian plain of the Danube 
below Ratisbon, which is the turning-point of its course, 
has received only fine alluvial deposits, by which it has 
been enriched. 

At Passau the junction of the Danube and the Inn 
now occurs not in the open country, but in valley furrows 
dug out of the granite of the Bavarian forest. From this 
point to Vienna stretches of mountain and plain alternate 
in fairly equal proportions. In three flat basins, the 
middle one of which begins at Linz and includes the 
mouths of the Traun and the Enns, the waters of the 
Danube divide around islets overgrown with willows. 
The main stream, however, continues to press so much 
towards the right bank that, on the map, its course from 
one narrow and rocky spot to another looks like a chain 
hanging between two posts. The mountain banks, from 
between which dangerous tocks and rapids have recently 
been successfully removed, are gay with fruit-growing 
villages, convents, country - houses, and ruined castles 
famous in legend. A delightful boating excursion may 
be made down to the point where the Danube touches 
the Wiener Wald and breaks, at Kloster Neuburg, through 
the first chain of the Alps. The Bisamberg, on the left 
bank, is but a continuation of the Kahlenberg. The 



THE ALPS AND THE GERMAN DANUBE 45 

narrow opening between them is the entrance to the 
basin of Vienna. 

This is an area of depression on the eastern border of 
the Alps, bounded by two lines of fracture, the position 
of which is marked by rows of hot springs. One of the 
lines coincides with that upon which the Alps break off to 
the east at Baden, the other with the north-western edge 
of the Rosalien ridge, diverging from the end of the 
Central Alps, and with that of the Leitha ridge. These 
mountains link the Alps with the Carpathians, divided 
quite superficially by the gap of Deveny where the Danube 
crosses the threshold of Hungary. 

The basin of Vienna, in the midst of Central Europe, 
has always been a place of importance, both as to the 
history of its surface and as to the fortunes of its inhabitants. 
Even in the Middle-Tertiary Period, when the Miocene 
ocean still washed the outer rim of the Alps and Car- 
pathians, an important communication existed at this 
point between that ocean and the waters which filled up 
the inner ring of the Carpathians and the basin of 
Roumania down to the Black Sea. As these wide 
expanses of country gradually dried, the Danube suc- 
ceeded as the ocean's heir to the water-lordship of the 
lands laid bare. Then it became, within historic times, 
the leader of peoples coming from the Hungarian plains 
to South Germany, or in the contrary direction. By all, as 
soon as they resolved to settle permanently along the middle 
Danube, the basin of Vienna was recognised as the site for 
a centre of traffic of the most far-reaching importance. 

Note on Authorities. — L. Ravenstein's general maps of all the 
Alpine districts, drawn from excellent original surveys, are admirable. 
They are on a scale of 1:250,000 and include 9 sheets of the Eastern 
Alps and 2 sheets of the Swiss Alps. 

A geological map of the Alps (scale 1:1,000,000) has been compiled 
by Noe. 

An English translation of " The Alps," by F. Umlauft, appeared 
in 1889. 

The process of the folding of the Alps was analysed by Edward Suess 
in his Enstehung der Alpen, 1875 ; and by Albert Heim in his Unter' 
suchungen iiber den Mechcmismus der Gebirgsbildung, 1878. 



46 CENTRAL EUROPE 

Special details as to the formation and distribution of the Alps are 
furnished by C. Diener's Der Gebirgsbau der Westalpen, 1891 ; by 
the same author's Der Gebirgsbau der Ostalpen (Petermann's Mit- 
teilungen, 1899, and Zeitschrift des D. and Oe. Alpe7iverei?is, xxxii. 
1901) ; and by A. Bohm {Geographische Abhandlungen, edited by Penck, 
i. 1, 1887). 

The scenery of the Alps, considered from a geological standpoint, 
was described by Eberhard Fraas in 1892 and by Sir John Lubbock in 
the " Scenery of Switzerland," 1 896 ; also by Edward Richter, Geomor- 
phologische Untersuchungen in den Hochalpen, 1900. 

For the Alpine Lakes, F. A. Forel's three volumes on Le Leman 
(1892-1902) are admittedly models. Lake atlases have been edited for 
Germany by A. Geistbeck and for Austria by Penck and Edward 
Richter (1895). 

In regard to glaciers at the present day, besides the general works of 
J. Tyndall and A. Heim, Edward Richter's Die Gletscher der Ostalpe?i 
is of importance ; his researches as to the snow line were carried on, 
in regard to the Swiss Alps, by Jegerlehner (Gerland's Beitrdge zur 
Geophysik, v., 1902). 

The Alps in the Glacial Age are discussed in a great work now being 
issued by A. Penck and Edward Bruckner. 

From the copious literature dealing with the flora may be distin- 
guished, H. Christ's Das Pflanzenlebe?i der Schweiz, 1879, and J. Ball's 
"Origin of the Flora of the European Alps" {Proceedings of the Geo- 
graphical Society, 1879). 

An inexhaustible mass of literature deals with the study of special 
portions of the Alps. In 1894 the Sixth International Geological Con- 
gress held at Zurich made a fine selection of the information stored in 
the volumes — which are more than forty in number — of the Beitrdge zur 
Geologischen Karte des Schweiz, and published the selection under the 
title of: Livret-Guide geologique dans le Jura et les Alpes de la Suisse. 
Monographs of general geographical interest are those of Baltzer upon 
the massif of the Aar and the ancient Aar glaciers {Beitrdge, xx., 
xxiv., and xxx.) ; of A. Heim upon the high Alps between the Reuss 
and the Rhine {Beitrdge, xxv.) ; of E. von Mojsisovic's Dolomitriffe 
von Slid Tirol und Venetie7t, 1879 ; and of F. Freeh, Die Kar?iischen 
Alpen, 1894. 

Among studies of the history of the valleys, Warmer's Geologische 
Bilder der Saizach, 1894, deserves particular attention since it especially 
elucidates Fig. 9. 

An excellent description of the Danube was published by Penck in 
1804. 



CHAPTER IV 

THE CARPATHIANS AND THE HUNGARIAN DANUBE 

The Carpathians are the continuation of the Alps ; yet 
they are an independent range, differing from the Alps 
in some particulars of historical development and internal 
conformation. Their deeply curved bow that runs from 
the Gap of Deveny to the Iron Gates at Orshova, does 
not exhibit the symmetry prevailing in the Eastern 
Alps. Of all the Alpine zones, one only is so connectedly 
developed in the Carpathians as to bear witness to the 
unity of the chain. This connecting zone is the belt of 
Carpathian sandstone, a continuation of the Northern Outer 
Alpine zone. That the mountains of the latter zone do 
not come completely to an end at the Wiener Wald is 
indeed shown by occasional low lines of hills rising from 
the Moravian plain. The Little Carpathians, however, 
which divide the March from the Lower Waag, are an 
evident continuation of the Central Alps. North of them, 
the two rivers are separated by a firmly locked chain of 
sandstone mountains. These are the Beskid Mountains, 
which, increasing in height as they advance towards the 
north-east, divide the Middle Waag not only from the 
March, but also from the Oder and the Upper Vistula. 
Even the Jablunka Pass, the easy passage from Hungary 
to Silesia, is surrounded by peaks from 4300 to 4600 
feet high, and the Babia Gora overtops the limits of 
the forest by 1300 feet. The sandstone rocks which 
form the middle section of the Carpathians divide 
the sources of the Hernad and Theiss from those of 
the Wisloka and San, which are tributaries of the 
Vistula, and from those of the Dniester and Pruth ; 
they also, like the Beskid Mountains, constitute the 



48 CENTRAL EUROPE 

boundary of Hungary and of the basin of the Danube. 
This outer belt of sandstone welds together in a mighty 
ring the fragments of elder mountains that lie within its 
curve ; its highest points are the grassy tops of the 
Czerna Hora (6652 feet), which rise from woodlands 
between the sources of the Theiss and Pruth. In the 
east of Transylvania, too, the valley basins of Csik and 
Haromsek, which feed the Alt, are divided from the 
Moldau by sandstone mountains. 

In height, breadth, and connectedness, the wooded 
sandstone mountains of the Carpathian chain are far 
superior to their kindred of the Outer Alps ; on the 
other hand, the northern limestone Alps are but 
faintly reproduced by a zone of limestone crags which, 
from the Middle Waag to Transylvania, appears on 
the inner side of the sandstone curve. In these crags 
we behold the remnants of an old mountain forma- 
tion broken up by changes of the earth's shape, and 
further damaged, before and after the beginning of 
the Tertiary period, by breakers of the sea. The rocky 
fretted crags of limestone stand out singly or in long, 
but often broken, rows, amid the gentle forms of the 
surrounding landscape, where their very isolation makes 
them striking. The limestone formation of Nagy 
Hagymash, at the source of the Marosh, recalls the bold 
outlines of the Dolomites in the Southern Tyrol. Neai 
Kronstadt (Brasso) rises the mighty bulk of the Bucsecs 
(8289 feet), the limestone nucleus of which is over- 
laid by conglomerates, incorporating pebbles from a sea- 
shore. This is the great final pillar of the limestone 
mountains. 

Except the Bucsecs, none of these mountains can 
compare in height with the peaks of primitive rock 
which — though less firmly connected — repeat in the 
Carpathians the central zone of the Alps. In the 
north-west and the south-east rocks of high geological 
antiquity extend to considerable breadth, and rise to 
heights of 8000 feet. The two mountain countries 
of which they form the core — Upper Hungary and 



CARPATHIANS AND HUNGARIAN DANUBE 49 

Transylvania — are ethnographically entitled as homes 
of the Slovaks and of the Roumanians to be reckoned 
separately, while between them, up to the sandstone 
belt of the Middle Carpathians, stretches the Magyar 
Plain. The most beautiful part of the Carpathians is 
certainly the High Tatra, with whose pyramids of granite 




Fig. 12. — The Lake Region of the High Tatra 



(7500 to 8700 feet) nothing in the Alps — unless it be 
the Aiguilles of Mont Blanc — can be compared. The 
valleys, once rilled by great glaciers, are now sprinkled 
with dark tarns. 

In Transylvania, the rock of the primitive formation 
divides into three groups, standing around the area of 
depression which occupies the centre of the province. To 
the north-east, between the rivers Theiss and Marosh, lie 
the Rodna Mountains; on the west, bounding that part of 



50 CENTRAL EUROPE 

Transylvania, are mighty mountains of which the nucleus 
is of old crystalline rock ; but the greatest development 
lies on the south in a belt that runs 180 miles, starting 
from the Torzburg Pass at Kronstadt, going first to the 
west, then to the south-west and south, and ending at the 
Iron Gates. Amid these thickly wooded and thinly 
peopled South Carpathians three groups, marked by 
circular valleys, high lakes, and traces of glaciers, surpass 
the height of 8000 feet. These are the Negoi in the 
mountains of Fogarash, Mount Mandra, and the Retyezat. 
Remarkable transverse valleys 'push across the separate 
chains and sometimes across the whole breadth of these 
mountains. The Rothe Thurm Pass — the valley in which 
the Alt, as it comes from Hermannstadt (Nagy Szeben), 
cuts through the whole mass of primitive rock in order to 
reach the lower lands of Roumania — is perhaps the most 
wonderful trench by which any river of our continent 
manages to cross a line of ancient mountains. This lane 
amid the rocks has from very early times been an avenue 
of communication, and is easier of passage than the 
shorter valley in which the Scyl breaks through from 
the Petrosheny valley — a basin with valuable deposits of 
Tertiary coal — and escapes by a narrow gorge between 
very high mountains into Roumania. 

Valleys of similar character occur in Upper Hungary. 
The Tatra mountains stand between the narrow valleys of 
the Arva and the Poprad ; the former begins among the 
sandstones on the north, and makes its way southward 
through the older rocks to the Waag, but the Poprad has 
its source south of the granite mountains, and passes 
through a deep slit of valley on their east to reach its 
junction with the Dunaiets in the basin of the Vistula. 

While these transversal valleys have no marked resem- 
blance to anything in the Alps, the main lines of the Alps 
are recalled by the great longitudinal valleys that lie 
among and even in the very heart of the Upper Hungarian 
mountains. The Waag, the Upper Poprad, and the 
Hernad together form a curve of valleys of the utmost 
importance to inter-communication, and although the 



CARPATHIANS AND HUNGARIAN DANUBE 51 

heights at the southern foot of the Tatra are considerable, 
the passages from the water-land of the Baltic to those of 
the Black Sea are extremely easy. 

The part of the Alps least represented in the Car- 
pathians is the continuation of the southern limestone Alps. 
Their rocks re-emerge from the ground of the Hungarian 
plain in the Bakonyan Forest near lake Balaton, and once 
more in the hills of the capital. But large distances 
separate the limestone mountains of Upper Hungary and 
Transylvania, both remarkable for far-famed caverns. 

The inner side of the curve formed by the Carpathians 
is bounded by the lines of fracture surrounding the great 
area of depression which is the plain of Hungary. 
Opportunities of measuring the depth at which portions 
of the old rock are sunk 
below the surface occur 
but rarely. Some boring 
operations, however, under- 
taken in the Communal 
Park of Pest, only came 

On the dolomite, of which Fig. 13.— Section of the Ground under 

the hills of Buda (Ofen) are Buda-Pest. 

formed, at a depth of 3000 

feet. This rock is thus sunk not less than 4300 feet below 
the level which it retains on the opposite bank of the 
Danube. It is from the lines of fracture along the dis- 
location that the famous hot springs of the capital rise. 
At other places, these lines of fracture running round 
the lowlands of Hungary have served as outlets for 
masses of rock in a state of igneous liquefaction. These 
rocks in noble and varied mountain forms now constitute 
the innermost volcanic zone of the Carpathian curve (Fig. 2), 
which far surpasses anything corresponding in the Alpine 
formation. 

The best of Hungarian wines used to come from the 
detritus of volcanic rock lying along the outer slope to 
the plain of the Danube and Theiss, but the phylloxera 
has now devastated many of the old and famous vine- 
yards here. 
5 



52 CENTRAL EUROPE 

Even the very narrow centre-piece of the Carpathians, 
which is formed almost wholly of sandstone, does not lack 
an inner foreground of volcanic rocks. The valleys at the 
source of the Theiss (Maramarosh) and of some of its 
tributaries are shut off from the plain by such ridges as 
those of the Vihorlat and Gutin. The most extensive 
trachyte mountains in Europe, however, are those in the 
eastern part of Transylvania. 

The last link of the Carpathians is formed by the 
mountains of the Banat between the Czerna, the Temesh, 
and the Danube. Their folds, which run nearly in the 
direction of the meridian, and are cut across in a wild 
ravine by the Danube, supply the connection between the 
Carpathians and the Balkans, and form so mighty a 
barrier between the plains of Hungary and Roumania, 
that traffic is unmistakably committed to the railway line 
at the " Porta Orientalis," or to the waterway of the 
Danube. The interior of the wooded mountains is popu- 
lous by reason of their wealth of coal and iron. 

When the first period of the Tertiary epoch (the 
Eocene) was over, and when the folding of the rocks, 
The working through long ages, had already 

Hungarian built up the great, firmly-connected Car- 
Danube and pathian curve, the outer mountains were 
Lowland. still surrounded, and the area of depres- 

sion within the mountain enclosure was still filled by a 
sea — the Miocene sea. It left behind the clays and sands 
of that soft undulating hill country, divided up by streams, 
which forms the inner and outer borders of the Car- 
pathians, and in the bosom of which lie hidden great 
deposits of salt. The formation of these salt beds is no 
doubt connected with the slow disappearance of that 
Miocene sea which lost by degrees its free communication 
with the ocean and the connection between its several 
parts. The sea was replaced by brackish lakes, the 
extent and saltness of which continued to grow less, 
until the bed of the old waters was laid dry and became 
an arena for the action of winds and rivers. 



MM BT : S1A- SUITS 




Hie Edinburgh. GeorfrapticaL Ins 



CARPATHIANS AND HUNGARIAN DANUBE 53 

In the Upper Hungarian plain (the Little Alfold) 
between the Alps and the Bakonyan Forest, great 
portions of the surface — some 6000 square miles — were 
covered with rubble brought down, not only by the Raab 
from the Alps, and by the Waag, Neutra, and Gran from 
the Carpathians, but also by the Danube. 

Above 'Waitzen (Vacz) the Danube makes its way 
through picturesque gorges overlooked by the ruined royal 
castle of Vishegrad into the lower plain of Hungary (the 
Alfold). The extent of this plain is greater (36,000 square 
miles), its surface still more gently inclined, its soil of finer 
grain. How deep was the basin which had to be filled 
up by the deposits of rivers running into the Alpine sea, 
we learn by boring into the middle of the plain. The 
Tertiary schists, which form the hills of the mountain- 
frame, are in places only touched at a depth of 650 feet. 
It is obvious that the sea became gradually smaller and 
shallower. Its last traces are to be found in the innumer- 
able shallow pans which still hold brackish quagmires, or 
have white crystals of carbonate of soda shining from 
their loamy beds.. For the most part, however, the sur- 
face of diluvial clay, which once filled the whole of the 
plain, has been covered by later formations brought 
hither and shaped by the wind. Wide areas are covered 
by the fertile loess — a loam which in its dry state crumbles 
and can be rubbed into fine powder — the unstratified 
deposit of dust storms. This is not confined to the fiat 
plains ; the mountain slopes that surround the plains or 
rise like islands from them are half buried under great 
cushions of it. Where rivers have cut their valleys into the 
plain, the steep edge of the layer of loess on their inclines 
becomes a conspicuous feature of the landscape. Very 
different in form and in agricultural value are the dunes 
of loose sand which prevail without a break over many 
tracts away from the great river valleys. The two largest 
of these undulating lakes of sand have now been reduced 
in great measure by the continued efforts of cultivation ; 
they are named Rumania, between the Danube and the 
Theiss, and Nyir — so called from long extinct birch 



54 CENTRAL EUROPE 

trees — near Debreczin, within the northward curve of 
the Theiss. Acacias have given firmness to the moving 
hills, and large stretches of waste land have become 
fruitful as vineyards. In the sandy district of the 
Temesh Comitat, also, near the spot where the Danube 
leaves the Hungarian lowland, agriculture has pushed 
forward its conquests ; but this, nevertheless, is the 
strip of Europe which comes nearest to resembling the 
shifting sand deserts of other continents. The Hungarian 
sand dunes, however, do not lie in an entirely waterless 
landscape ; on the contrary they sometimes tend to 
hinder the outflow of water. Tracts that have become 
bogs occur in consequence in their immediate neighbour- 
hood, and only by degrees have these marshes, with their 
thickets of reeds — a paradise for aquatic birds — been 
freed from water and given over to cultivation. 

The very nature of the soil thus prevents a develop- 
ment of perfect sameness throughout this great lowland. 
The one characteristic common to all parts of it is poverty 
of wood. Each of the methods of making use of land 
occupies wide areas. There are still vast plains of 
pasturage, upon which herds of horses run free, and 
which supply food to hundreds of white, large-horned 
cattle and to myriads of sheep. But the picture of the 
Pusta which was true only a few decades ago, the much 
be-sung " steppe dreaming of the ocean," is gradually 
fading before the advance of agriculture. More and more 
farms are always being planted out in this vast territory 
by people from the populous but village-like towns. Ac- 
cording to the soil, fields of maize and wheat, and planta- 
tions of hemp, tobacco, or vines, are always being pushed 
farther forward. Passengers travelling by express trains 
through this battlefield of human labour are astounded 
by the amazingly quick change of scenes. 

The Danube and Theiss run parallel through the 
whole width of the lowlands, from north to south — two 
sisters differing in size and character. The fall of the 
Theiss in this part is scarcely half that of the larger river. 
The lower reach, in particular, from Segedin to the end 



CARPATHIANS AND HUNGARIAN DANUBE 55 

of the Theiss — 150 miles — has the minimum fall of only 
1 5 feet. Any considerable rising of the Danube, therefore, 
at once drives back the Theiss. When the snows melt on 
the Carpathians around the Theiss basin, serious conse- 
quences soon ensue ; through all the watercourses from 
the Hernad to the Samosh and the Korosh come vast 
quantities of water flowing simultaneously into the Theiss, 
while exactly at Segedin, the third river of Transylvania, 
the Marosh, falls in and further increases the flood. It was 
in such a conjuncture that, on the 12th of March 1879, 
Segedin was destroyed by an inundation. Stronger 
dikes have been erected as a safeguard against the re- 
currence of the danger. 

The whole mountain course of the Danube from Bazi- 
ash to Turn Severin is 85 miles long, of which the reach 
from Old Moldova to the lower end of the Iron Gates, 
still difficult and formerly dangerous of navigation, occu- 
pies 68. The romantic rocky avenue of this reach, com- 
bined with a profusion of changing pictures for the 
tourist, was an accumulation of all conceivable hindrances 
to traffic. The variations of fall were extreme, the total 
descent amounting to 83 feet; the width repeatedly 
changed, and varied from 160 yards to 2400 ; the depth, 
which at low water fell in places to no more than four 
feet — and that amid threatening rocks and shoals — in- 
creased in narrows where the stream was strong to more 
than 1 70 feet, and the bed of the river in such places lay 
lower than the level of the sea 600 miles away. The 
removal of the impediments was undertaken, at the Berlin 
Congress of 1878, by Austria-Hungary, and the enterprise 
has been carried through, at a cost of nineteen million 
gulden (more than .£1,500,000). The aim pursued, which 
was the establishment throughout of a channel 200 feet 
wide and 6 feet 5 inches deep, has been attained. At 
the Iron Gate of Orshova, however, this could only be 
achieved by cutting out of the solid rock a canal 2700 yards 
long, which runs on the Servian shore and avoids the 
host of rocks amid which navigation had hitherto threaded 
its perilous course. In this canal, owing to the steepness 



56 CENTRAL EUROPE 

of the fall, the stream runs with great rapidity — at the 
rate of from 13 to 16 feet per second. It has a depth 
of 8 feet 2 inches, which permits even the larger ships of 
the Lower Danube to come up to Orshova, the terminus 
of the Hungarian railway system. 

The facilities for navigation will give life to the traffic 
of the country west of the Danube, as well as to the dis- 
tricts of the Danube and Theiss. The largest lake of Cen- 
tral Europe, however, the Platten See, or Lake Balaton, 
266 square miles, is completely cut off from the Hungarian 
system of navigable rivers. It has no commercial import- 
ance, except in so far as fish may be caught and reeds cut 
in it. On the Drave navigation goes up to Legrad, and 
on the Save to Sissek, whence little boats ascend the Kulpa 
to Karlstadt. This point, distant by water 500 miles 
from the Danube and 1300 miles from the Black Sea, is 
but 40 miles away from the shore of the Adriatic. But 
the old legend of the Argonauts' voyage from the Ister 
to Istria will never come true. The mountains utter 
an inexorable veto. 

Note on Authorities. — The most exhaustive work upon the Car- 
pathians was written in the Polish language by Rehmann in 1895 ; 
this was made accessible to German readers by E. von Romer's 
abridgment (Mitteilungen der Kaiserlich-Koniglichen Geographischen 
Gesellschaft, Vienna, 1896). 

Among the best descriptions of separate parts are the works of 
V. Uhlig, Geologie des Tatra Gebirges {Denkschriften der Kaiserlich- 
Koniglichen Akadonie der Wissenschaften, math, naturiv. Klasse, Ixiv., 
lxviii., Vienna, 1897, 1899), and Der Pieninische Klippenzug {Jahrbuch 
der Kaiserlich-Koniglichen Reichsanstalt XL, 1890). 

The geographical division of the mountains is dealt with by Ferdi- 
nand Pax in the introduction to the Grundziige der Pflanzoiverbreitung 
i?i den Karpathen, 1898. Fig. 13 is taken from Szabo's Geologie von 
Buda-Pest, 1879. 

The Hungarian Geographical Society is publishing a great general 
work about Lake Balaton (the Platten-See). 



CHAPTER V 

THE ILLYRIAN CHAINS, THE BALKAN, AND 
THE LOWER DANUBE 

Under the name of the Illyrian Chains it may be per- 
mitted to include the whole of the mountains from the 
Adriatic to the Servian Drin, from the Isonzo to the 
Lake of Scutari, and from the Save to the Amselfeld 
(Kossovo Polye). Within this space, however, lie moun- 
tains differing greatly in antiquity and in formation, and 
contrasting widely in their external shapes. 

The Karst is most clearly distinguishable. This name, 
which belongs in the first instance to the low mountains 
between Trieste and the basin of Laibach, has been 
extended by the scientific to the special characteristic 
forms of limestone mountains, the surface and interior 
of which have been affected by the solvent chemical 
action of water. Scenery of the Karst type prevails 
along the north-eastern shore of the Adriatic throughout 
a belt from sixty to ninety miles in breadth, extending 
from the plateau at the foot of the Triglav to the sterile 
highlands of Montenegro, which fall away in steps, not 
only westward to the sea, but also southward towards 
the Albanian lowland around the lake of Scutari and 
the mouth of the Boyana. This whole district consists 
chiefly of thick limestone rocks belonging to the middle 
grades of the sedimentary series (Cretaceous but also 
Triassic) ; and these deposits are corrugated in south- 
easterly folds that are softly rounded, not closely pressed 
together, and therefore more favourable to the develop- 
ment of plateaux than of narrow ridges. In the troughs 
between the folds lie long stretches of more recent 
sandstones, valuable because they retain water and are 



5 8 CENTRAL EUROPE 

thus better suited to vegetation than the belts of lime- 
stone. 

The surface of the limestone mountains has grown 
singularly rough and uneven under the solvent action 
of the water shed by the fiercest rainfalls of Europe. 
Sometimes the limestone is fretted by irregularly 
bordered furrows, between which project rough, sharp- 
edged ribs of rock. But more peculiar to the Karst than 
these stretches of " Karren," which we have already met 
on the Alps, are the eroded formations of the " dolines," 
rounded funnels or pans of very varied dimensions, which 
break the smoothness of the surface quite irregularly, 
many lying sometimes close together, like pock-marks in 
the skin of a human face. A close examination of the 
" dolines " intersected by a railway cutting, often shows 
us that they have been dissolved out of firm rock by the 
chemical destruction of its substance ; they are funnels 
eaten out from above by waters which gradually worked 
their way to the depths, not through considerable 
openings, but through indistinguishable cracks. Even in 
Karst districts that have been overgrown by woods, this 
unevenness of the rocky substratum reveals itself in 
innumerable sharp edges of rock breaking through their 
mossy covering, and in the number of deep holes 
between which the way winds or ascends and descends. 
But the Karst in its barrenness is forbidding — a pathless 
wilderness of rock, a labyrinth of irregular forms that yet 
recur monotonously over wide expanses, dry and dead as 
a lunar landscape. 

The stubborn intractability of the Karst to vegetation 
is due less to the absence of soft soil — for sometimes, 
when it is not swept away by storms, the hollows of the 
surface will be filled by " red earth " {terra rosso), a clayey- 
residuum from the chemical decomposition of the rock — 
but rather to the more general, and far more serious, lack of 
water. Rich as are the rainfalls of the whole Karst district, 
the water quickly disappears into the clefts and holes of the 
fretted rock, and transfers its circulation, and a part of its 
geological action to the dark heart of the mountains. 



ILLYRIAN CHAINS, THE BALKAN, ETC. 



59 



The whole mass of the Karst is not indeed filled like 
a sponge with a network of hollows, but it is literally true 
that the interiors of the great mountains are pierced by 
large branching passages, which in one place will draw in 
and become narrow pipes, and in another will widen out 
into spacious halls. These are formed by the chemical 
and mechanical erosion of the water, which coming in 




Zasxxl above isoofeet sK-owrx. thus <S2> Qbove 300oy~eel IHlls G3> 

Fig. 14. — The Hydrography of the Karst. 



from the surface, collects in great reservoirs, and makes 
lakes and rivers that, after flowing long in darkness, 
emerge as considerable streams. Thus a great part of 
the water system, which in general divides and moulds 
the face of the country, flows in the Karst district under- 
ground. There are large areas with no series of open, 
descending valleys ; ill-developed, fragmentary valleys run 
in a deep furrow for a few miles, only to be stopped 



6o CENTRAL EUROPE 

short by a wall of rock ; their streams disappear into its 
caverns, and only come to light again at a consider- 
able distance, under other names. Like Greece, which 
was the home of the belief in the transmigration of 
souls, the Karst country, from the Adelsberg grotto 
to the valley of the Zeta bisecting Montenegro, is 
full of rivers which disappear through the gates of 
the nether world to find a speedy resurrection, some 
of them repeating the process two or three times. 

A particularly striking feature of these half hidden, 
half open watercourses is furnished by the so - called 
" polye," large valleys often measuring a hundred square 
miles and more, which mostly follow the main direction 
of the mountains, and as a rule are only drained under- 
ground through sink-holes. These holes or " ponors " 
open sometimes in the midst of the valley, sometimes 
on its borders, sometimes even at a distance up the 
sides. According to the capacity of the conduits and 
its relation to the water supply from springs, rivers, and 
rainfall, many of the " polye " are at certain seasons 
dry and at others covered for months by a sheet of 
water. The soil being fertile and abundantly watered, 
these depressions amid arid limestone ridges, are often 
populous and industrious centres. But their morasses 
are not infrequently hotbeds of fever, and they are 
sometimes imperfectly ventilated, whereas the mighty 
gusts of the Bora sweep wildly over the heights and 
rush down to the coast on to the warm sea. 

Sometimes the longitudinal division of the land has 
been accentuated by the sea. Its waves fill submerged 
valleys, from between which rise light grey ridges of 
limestone in long islands like gnawed bones. Narrow 
streaks of sea divide Veglia, Arbe, and Pago from the 
steep chain of the Velebit, which runs along the edge 
of the Croatian mainland. The coast of Zara, continuing 
the line of these islands, still remains cut off from the 
open Adriatic by the outer chain of islands beginning 
with Cherso and Lussin. Punta Planca appears like 
a continuation of them incorporated with the mainland. 



ILLYRIAN CHAINS, THE BALKAN, ETC. 61 

Immediately beyond this mountain projection, however, 
which receives the direct impact of the open sea, the 
coast again breaks up into the South Dalmatian archi- 
pelago, extending from Spalato to Ragusa. Under the 
shelter of the host of high islands lie many safe anchor- 
ages and good harbours. In several places a narrow 
entrance leads into an extensive enclosed basin, easily 




Fig, 15. — The Underground Drainage of Illyria. 

to be recognised as a submerged valley. In a few cases 
several valloni unite into branching inland basins. Thus, 
behind the harbour of Sebenico lies what was once a 
small second valley united to the first by a narrow 
channel, forming the basin into which the Kerka falls. 
The famous harbour system of the Bocche di Cattaro at 
the foot of the Montenegran mountains is made of three 
submerged longitudinal valleys connected by cross-way 
openings. 



62 CENTRAL EUROPE 

The absence of valleys opening from the coast towards 
the land is an inevitable consequence of the Karst charac- 
teristics. To this general defect, which so retards the 
development and so lessens the value of many extensive 
districts, one exception, all the more important on account 
of its rarity, appears in the valley of the Narenta. One 
of the sources of this valley is at the foot of the Ivan 
Pass (3314 feet high), by which the easiest communica- 
tion goes into the central basin of Bosnia. Thus, the 
wild gorges of the Narenta, traversing all the ridges 
of the Karst, open the only passage into the interior ; but 
even of this a considerable part has only been rendered 
accessible by the expedients of modern engineering. The 
river itself, however, is always at work to destroy these 
advantageous conditions. Its alluvial deposits choke up 
the mouth, which lies amid unhealthy swamps. More- 
over, the basin into which the Narenta falls, though 
beautifully placed among the mountains, is most un- 
desirably cut off on the south and south-west by the long 
bar of the Sabioncello peninsula. No wonder that works 
are in progress to divert the Narenta railway farther 
eastward, and to employ Gravosa, the splendid harbour 
of Ragusa, as the future principal port of Herzegovina 
and Bosnia in the place of Metkovits on the Narenta, 
which is approachable only by small ships. 

The boundary of the Karst in the interior is often 
very sharply marked. Sometimes a few steps will suffice 
to carry the traveller from the limestone desert to the 
carpet of turf in the wooded grove that spreads above 
the vigorous mould of other formations. In Montenegro 
the contrast between the scenery of the south-western 
and the eastern half is particularly striking. 

The eastern highland of Montenegro is a continuation 
of the high mountains of Bosnia, which are as clearly 
divided from the western part of Herzegovina and from 
Dalmatia as the greenness of Styria is from the rocky 
deserts of Carniola. It is true that among these moun- 
tains mighty blocks of limestone occur, the age and 
formation of which (they are Triassic) vividly recall 



ILLYRIAN CHAINS, THE BALKAN, ETC. 63 

Southern Tyrol. The inexhaustible variety, however, of 
the Tyrolese mountain forms is mainly represented here by 
only one prevalent pattern — broad bulky stocks with an 
uneven surface, but without lofty peaks. Below and 
between such limestone masses, appear older schistose 
mountains with ore in their veins and woods upon their 
summits. The wildest of these mountain blocks (all over 
7000 feet high) surround the upper reaches of the 
Narenta. The highest peak bears the melodious name 
of Tshwrstnitsa ; it is less well known and of less impor- 
tance to science than the Byelashnitsa, at the summit of 
which a meteorological station has been erected. The 
north-eastern portion of Bosnia bordering upon Servia 
is filled by thickly-wooded mountains of moderate height 
and gentler forms. These are framed of conglomerates, 
sandstones, and slates, the age and formation of which 
belong to the same stage as the Carpathian sandstone. 
Towards the south-east, however, the Triassic mountains 
of Bosnia with their limestone crowns come to an end, shut 
off by the broad tongue of primitive rocks which stretches 
from Macedonia northwards towards Servia. 

The greater part cf the extensive Morava district is 

dominated by a broad wedge of old mountains, pushed 

out between the Illyrian chains and the ^ 

J . . The Primitive 

Balkans by the primitive mountain forma- mountains 

tion of Thrace and Macedonia. In Servia, and the 

the primitive rocks fall mainly into ridges Main Valleys 

stretching to the north - west, enclosing OF Servia and 

woody heights and fertile valleys full of 

maize fields and plum-tree plantations. On the highest of 

these ridges rests the south-western boundary of Servia, 

but not the boundary of the Morava basin. On the 

contrary, two of its sources, the I bar and the main branch 

of the Morava river, force their way through the highest 

portion of this boundary ridge into Turkish territory. 

The Ibar drains the Amselfeld (Kossovo Polye), the field 

of battle where enemies have so often met to decide 

the fate of Servia. Upon the bank of the river, at the 



64 CENTRAL EUROPE 

northern end of the basin, the Turkish railway system 
begins at Mitrovitza. The narrow trough of the Ibar 
valley, from this point to the Servian frontier, has hitherto 
been impassable. Farther east, however, a mountain road 
leads directly over from Servia into the Amselfeld. The 
Austrian scheme for continuing the Bosnian railway 
through the Drina district to Mitrovitza, and so opening 
a way of its own to Salonica, promises to give greater 
importance to the line running across this depression. 
The Amselfeld railway has no serious difficulty in reach- 
ing the upper basin of the Vardar ; there it joins the 
Belgrade and Salonica line, which, crossing the heart of 
Servia by way of the wide and open Morava valley, runs 
beside the river to reach Turkish territory and the water- 
shed. The upper valley of the Morava furnishes the 
easiest passage through the ancient mountain groups at 
the core of Sclavonic Southern Europe. Its importance 
is increased by the height and difficulty of the rising 
mountains into which this group expands eastward, on 
the northern confines of the Turkish Empire towards 
Bulgaria and Roumelia. From the south, it is true, the 
upper reaches of the Struma Valley, whose sources lie on 
the Vitosha not far from Sofia, ascend between mighty 
mountains into Bulgarian territory. But the road has 
to traverse difficult gorges before it attains to the upper 
basin of the Struma at the hot springs of Kostendil, 
whence it proceeds over a high pass at the west of the 
Vitosha (7518 feet high) to Sofia. More to east the 
Rila (9590 feet high) far surpasses the level of the pine 
woods and obtains a more distinctly Alpine character than 
any other of the mountains of the peninsula. Its fields of 
snow shine afar until late in the summer. The northern 
slopes of its broad ridge are divided by many valleys, and 
upon their gradations are scattered more than a hundred 
little lakes, as well as many unmistakable traces of glaciers. 
The eastern continuation of the Rila, the Rhodope chain, 
heightened by copious eruptions of volcanic rock, forms 
the southern rim of the Roumelian basin through which 
the Maritza flows. 



ILLYRIAN CHAINS, THE BALKAN, ETC. 65 

This area of depression lies amid the old mountain 
groups that feed the rivers of the ^Egean Sea, and 
occupies an important boundary position similar to that 
of the Morava valley. The roots of these two valleys, 
however, and the sources of the rivers Morava and Maritza, 
are separated by the lofty mountains around the head of 
the Struma. There is, nevertheless, a slender passage 
between the main valley of Servia and that of Roumelia. 
It is formed by the central link in a highly remarkable 
series of longitudinal valleys embedded in the Balkan 
system, which encircle the main line of the Balkans, 
running in a wide curve from the neighbourhood of the 
Black Sea to the Danube. The Eastern Roumelian 
portion of this great chain of valleys follows a line of 
fracture at the steep southern foot of the Balkans, marked 
by numerous hot springs ; the Tundja collects here the 
waters destined to enlarge the Maritza at Adrianople. 
Through the north-western part, belonging to Servia, flows 
the Timok ; while the central or Bulgarian section, the 
basin in which the Isker rises, is the plain of Sofia. The 
importance of this plain depends upon the convergence 
of many roads. All are subordinate to the main line 
from Belgrade to Constantinople, whose principal stations 
are Nissa, Sofia, and Philippopolis, divided from one 
another by low barriers. 

While the mountains between the Maritza and the 
Tundja,- and also the bases of the Vitosha, show themselves 
by their formation, age, and shapes to be outposts of the 
old Thracian and Macedonian group, we shall find that 
the limestone mountains of East Servia, between the 
Timok and the Morava, have extensive plateaux and 
present the characteristics of the Karst. In these latter 
we recognise a continuation of the mountains of the 
Banat. As the contour of that chain is closely conjoined 
to the primitive mountains of Transylvania, so in like 
manner does the East Servian Karst, between the Timok 
and the Danube, join the northern end of the main 
Balkan chain. 



66 CENTRAL EUROPE 

Like the Alps and the Carpathians, the Balkans have 

been raised by a mighty folding of the strata, but 

they clearly differ from them in the dis- 

The Balkans s i m il ar development of their northern and 

AND ADJACENT ,, r xi j ^ ^1 xi r xi 

^ Tr ^ rrrTt , r southern footlands. On the north of the 

COUNTRY. 

Balkans lies not a foreland, levelled by 
the deposit of later rocks, but the Bulgarian tableland 
trenched by the Balkan streams, with surface formations 
(Cretaceous) which are older than the completion of the 
mountain foldings. On the south, the Balkans are cut off 
by lines of fracture, though the descent towards these does 
not, as in the case of the Po and the Theiss, lead to an area 
of depression in the form of a wide-spread plain, but into 
a land of lively and varied contours, where the rem- 
nants of ancient mountains rise amid valleys and basins. 
It might at first appear remarkable that this fractured 
edge should occur, not on the concave but on the convex 
side of the Balkan curve. The abnormality, however, 
disappears when we perceive that the Balkans are but 
the western wing of a great chain of mountains, continued 
in the Crimea and the Caucasus, the combined curve of 
which opens southwards towards the depth of the Black 
Sea. It is the concave side of this now disrupted range 
which is marked by fractures and depressions. 

The internal structure and physiognomy of the Balkans 
vary in the extent of their long course, and a division 
into three sections appears desirable. The Western 
Balkans are bounded by the two famous gorges in which 
the Danube and the Isker force their passages, the latter, 
as Herodotus says, "splitting the mountain through the 
middle." This section, in which the heights gradually 
fall to moderate hills, is traversed by the Timok, along 
which a whole group of Roman roads, meeting at Nissa, 
passed towards the gate of the Danube and Transylvania. 
But immediately south of the Timok valley the Western 
Balkans (Stara Planina) close to a single ridge, and the 
roads from Nissa and Sofia to Lorn Palanka on the 
Danube are obliged to make a considerable ascent in 
order to surmount the barrier. 



ILLYRIAN CHAINS, THE BALKAN, ETC. 67 

In the Central Balkans the intensity of the mountain 
folding was such that, in spite of the immense denuding 
process of long ages, great broad summits of primitive 
rock, such as the Yumruktshal (8104 feet), still remain. 
Few of the passes, drenched with blood in many cam- 
paigns, will in the future, after the boring of the tunnel at 
Orkhanie, be of importance, not even the famous Shipka 
(4375 feet). The ascent to this from Ternova, the old 
royal capital of Bulgaria, by way of the Yantra valley, is 
easy, but on the southern slope the road descending to 
the rose gardens of Kazanlik follows long windings on the 
face of the steep incline. 

The precipitous southern slope, the descent of which 
from the Central Balkans to Roumelia is everywhere 
rendered delightful by a milder climate and a more strik- 
ing flora, is also a characteristic of the Eastern Balkans, 
where the lines of fracture on the southern edge are 
marked, not only by hot springs, but by accumulations of 
volcanic rock in the mountain country between Yamboli 
and Burgas, the Tundja and the Black Sea. In other 
respects the eastern wing of the Balkans is very clearly 
distinguished from the western wing of the same moun- 
tains. For while in the former, and especially on its 
steep southern edge, old schists and gneiss are extensively 
present, the prevalent rocks throughout the eastern wing 
are sandstones and schistous marls that recall the Car- 
pathian sandstone. These formations, pushed together 
into folds, compose not a single lofty ridge, but several 
parallel chains of moderate height. The mountains gain 
in breadth and lose in altitude. The Demir Kapu (Iron 
Gate), 3600 feet high, between Sliven and Ternova, which 
may be regarded as the boundary of the Central Balkans, 
is the last pass in which one single severe ascent is neces- 
sary — but also sufficient — for the passage from Roumelia 
to Bulgaria. From this point towards the east the height 
of the mountains drops rapidly, and an abundance of 
roads, none of which rises to above 1600 feet, take 
their way through the wooded undulations of the 
hilly district traversed by the Kamtshik. At this point 



68 CENTRAL EUROPE 

the Balkan chain ceased to constitute a strong protec- 
tion to Roumelia, and required in its turn to be pro- 
tected by the Bulgarian quadrilateral. As the eastern 
close of the Balkans is marked on the coast line of the 
Black Sea by the promontory of Cape Emineh (Emon), 
beset with Greek monasteries, so is the great longitudinal 
valley that follows the foot of the mountains represented 
by the bay of Burgas. Shallow lagoons surround the 
shore of the Roumelian harbour ; but the harbour of Bul- 
garia, Varna, no longer belongs to the mountain region, 
and is formed by the widened mouth of a river indent- 
ing the uniform eastern rim of the Cretaceous Bulgarian 
tableland. 

The northern foreland of the Balkans widens to- 
wards the east, and is traversed by the rivers Isker, Vid, 
Osma, and Yantra, which carry their wide washed-out 
valleys across it. These valleys, framed by steep rims, 
change their direction repeatedly, and are rather barriers 
to communication than roads, traffic going preferably by 
way of the free high-flats between. The surface of the 
Bulgarian plain is extremely monotonous, variety being 
given only by the furrows of the valleys, and by the 
rather surprising appearance, to west of the Yantra, of 
a row of basaltic cones, which mark a hidden line of 
fracture. Except the woodland of Deli Orman, most 
parts of the plain resemble the steppes, whose character 
entirely dominates the Dobruja. 

The deep "loess" covering of the Dobruja, whose 
dust is a plaything for the winds, veils a most varied 
mountain formation. The rocky undulations of the 
country are not outposts of the Carpathians or of the 
Balkans, but present, in the interval between them, a 
noteworthy example of the blocks left behind by an older 
conformation of the earth of Europe. Bare and barren 
of water, though amidst streams, swamps, and lagoons, 
dominated alternately by parching sunshine and by bitter 
winter chills, swept by unkindly winds, and yet not 
healthy, the Dobruja to-day, as in the days of Ovid, is 
a cheerless country, " Loca felici non adeunda viro." Yet 



ILLYRIAN CHAINS, THE BALKAN, ETC. 69 

how promising is the position which it occupies at the 
mouth of the greatest river of Central Europe. 

The Danube has been described as the river which 
connects basins. In the region of its lower reaches it con- 
tinues to have in some degree the character of 
a trough bordered on every side by higher D ^LJ^ E WER 
lying land. Between the rocky heights in 
the north-west of the Dobruja and the farthest outposts 
of the Carpathians lies an interval scarcely fifty miles 
broad. From this gap, however, the domain of the 
Lower Danube extends a long side wing towards the north, 
and includes the districts of the Sereth and the Pruth. 
Unlike the bottle-shaped upper section of the Danube or 
the vast rectangle of the middle section, which spreads 
between the four corners of the Venediger, the Schnee- 
berg near Glatz, the Czerna Hora, and the Shar Dagh, 
the Lower Danube basin has a heart-shaped form. The 
kingdom of Roumania, whose outline is drawn by the 
Danube and the Pruth, lies on the map like an eagle with 
spread pinions bearing down from the Carpathians to the 
Black Sea. 

At its emergence from the Iron Gates, the Danube 
lies but 120 feet above the sea-level ; the 600 miles 
of its lower course can have therefore but an extremely 
slight fall. Nevertheless, thanks to its great body of 
water, further swollen as it goes on, it runs not 
sluggishly, but with great force between the high bank 
of the Bulgarian plateau and the flat lowlands on the 
Roumanian shore, which in times of flood it widely 
overflows. The unequal distribution of alluvial deposits 
at this part, both by the main stream and by its tribu- 
taries, has caused these latter to be diverted, and swamps 
and lakes to be formed along the Danube. Only at a 
few places does the " loess " terrace of Roumania come 
close to the river and offer solid crossing places ; these 
are generally marked by a pair of towns facing each 
other from opposite banks. On the most southerly 
stretch of its course the stream of the Danube often 



70 CENTRAL EUROPE 

widens to great breadth or divides around willow-grown 
islands. Places occur in which at low water a navigable 
depth of six and a half feet can hardly be counted upon. 
These difficulties, however, cease as soon as the largest 
streams from the Balkans and Southern Carpathians have 
been included. But now the river grows too strong for 
the ruling care of the State in which lie its lowest 
reaches. Below Silistria, where the Danube passes 
entirely into the kingdom of Roumania, begins the plexus 
of streams that surrounds the western and northern sides 
of the Dobruja. The landscape of the northward flowing 
reaches down to Braila, the principal centre for the ex- 
portation of Roumanian grain, is dominated by the two 
long narrow islands of Balta, which are permanently 
intersected by lakes and dikes, and at high water mostly 
covered by the river. At Galatz, between the confluences 
of the Sereth and of the Pruth, the river begins to turn 
eastward. From this point the left bank is bordered 
by the lower ends of long lakes that run far up into the 
land, due to streams which, being barred from the river 
by banks of alluvium, have been driven back and have 
overflowed their valleys. At sixty miles' distance from the 
sea this amphibious country merges into the delta of the 
Danube. The strongest stream is that on the north, the 
Kilia, which conveys two-thirds of the waters of the 
Danube north-eastward along the boundary of Roumania 
and Russia to the many branching mouths. The weaker 
stream of St. George, running to the south-east, soon 
divides a second time. The principal part of -the traffic 
is carried not by the main right-hand branch, but by the 
Sulina, which runs through the middle of the triangular 
swamp (900 square miles in extent), and retains but seven 
per cent, of the entire volume of water. This channel is 
preferable as being less winding and shorter, but espe- 
cially because less silt is carried along it, and its mouth 
therefore suffers less change of conformation than is the 
case with the larger branches, which bring down great 
masses of alluvial matter. These causes have led to the 
concentration upon the Sulina of all the measures taken 



ILLYRIAN CHAINS, THE BALKAN, ETC. 71 

for the development of successful navigation on a large 
scale. The minimum depth, which was naturally but seven 
feet, has been increased to twenty. Long dikes erected 
at the mouth serve several useful ends ; they ensure the 
removal of the silt to deep water, where it may sink 
and do no harm ; they prevent also the mouth of the 
river from becoming sanded up by the sea current along 
the beach, and they enclose the harbour into which comes 
the traffic of the regions served by Central Europe's 
largest river. This traffic, however, enlivens only the 
main course of the Lower Danube and not any of its 
tributaries. Only in the far future can we look forward 
to the regulation of the Pruth, which might easily be 
made a profitable water-way, if it were not the boundary 
of the Russian Empire. 



Note on Authorities. — Various researches into the physiography of 
the Illyrian chains have been collected into a monograph by J. Cvijic : 
Das Karstphaenomen (Geographische Abha?tdhmgen, edited by A. Penck, 
v., 1893). 

In regard to the hydrography of Carniola, Urbas may be consulted 
{Zeitschrift des D. und Oe. Alpenvereins, viii., 1877). 

The formation and topography of Montenegro were not made known 
until considerably later by the researches of E. Tietze {Jahrbuch der 
Kaiserlich-Koniglichett Reichsansta.lt, xxxiv., 1884), and of K. Hassert 
(Supplement No. 115 to Petermann's Mitteilungen). 

The pioneers in scientific investigation in Bosnia were E. v. 
Mojsisovics, E. Tietze, and A. Bittner. A general view of its orography 
is given by Lukas {Wissenschaftliche Mitteilungen aus Bosnien, viii., 
1901). 

The earliest geological sketch of Servia was presented by Zujovic 
{Jahrbuch der Kaiserlich-Koniglichen Geologische?i Reichsanstalt, xxxvi., 
1886). 

The exploration of the Balkans, begun by Ferdinand von Hochstetter, 
was carried on by F. Toula, 187 5-1 895 (Denkschriften der Kaiserlich- 
Koniglichen Akademie der Wissenschaften math, naturw. Klasse, xliv., 
lv., Ivii., lix., lxiii.). The best authority upon the Lower Danube and 
the Dobruja is K. Peters Die Donau tend ihr Gebiet {Denkschriften der 
Kaiserlich-Koniglichen Akademie, xxvii., 1867). 



CHAPTER VI 

THE BLOCK MOUNTAINS AND TABLELANDS OF 
CENTRAL EUROPE 

If we follow the bends in which the chains of the 

Alpine system curve from the Ligurian Sea to the Black 

Sea, we can hardly fail to suppose that some 

astern p ar t s of these windings mark the places 
Outposts. © r 

where the folds that were pushing forward 

yielded to the opposing masses of older rock. How 
striking is the curve in which the ridges of the Eastern 
Alps and the Western Carpathians swing round the 
southern and eastern rim of the old Bohemian group ! 
How the Jura curls round the southern border of the 
Black Forest ! 

Similarly, on the outer edge of the Carpathians lie two 
blocks of old country whose horizontal strata the waves of 
the Alpine fold did not succeed in penetrating. One of 
these, the plain of Podolia, is an integral part of the old 
Russian tableland, a piece of Eastern Europe. The par- 
tition of the kingdom of Poland, however, has brought 
the boundary of the Empire of Austria up on to this 
plain. South of the railway from Lemberg to Brody, its 
northern rim rises above the sources of the Bug, forming 
the southern border of the Vistula basin. From this 
edge the streams, including the boundary river Zbruz, 
run southward, cutting their channels deeper and deeper, 
until they enter the chief river of Eastern Galicia, the 
Dniester. A long stretch of the south-easterly course of this 
marks the south-western boundary of the Podolian table. 
It is not until beyond Halicz, the place from which all 
Galicia took its name, that the Dniester itself enters the 
plateau. The meanderings which it began by describing 



BLOCK MOUNTAINS AND TABLELANDS 73 

upon the surface have been bitten deeper and deeper into 
the strata ; on the steep faces of its valley — sometimes 
as much as 500 feet high — their sequence lies exposed ; 
at the top " loess," accumulating in the storms of the 
bare steppe ; then marine deposits from the Tertiary and 
Cretaceous periods ; and lowest of all, the old red sand- 
stone. Under the valley-brinks cluster well-sheltered 
towns and villages, but upon the table itself (1000 to 
1300 feet high) the steppes extend without a tree, and 
generally without the break of any settlement ; the 
greater part has now, however, been brought under the 
plough and converted into waving cornfields. 

As the Upper Dniester, above its entrance into the 
plateau, and then the broad valley of the Pruth divide the 
Carpathians of Eastern Galicia from the Podolian table, so 
in the west the Vistula divides from the Beskid mountains 
and their flat foreland the ancient upland emerging 
from under the broad undulations of Poland and Upper 
Silesia. Between Sandomirz and Kielce, old slates, 
quartzites, and sandstones lift their soft ridges from the 
Cretaceous formation prevailing in the south-western 
part of Poland. These are but the uppermost and most 
recent of the horizontally laid strata composing the table 
of Poland and Upper Silesia. The limit of the limestone 
deposits of the Polish Jura is an escarpment formed by 
denudation, and appears as a cliff crowned by the 
monastery of Czenstochow, and at the foot of the cliff 
runs the Upper Warta. Westward, Triassic formations 
prevail throughout the northern half of Upper Silesia. 
In them also the limestones form a steep slope towards 
the valley of the Oder, and gain impressiveness from 
the position of the little Annaberg, which is the most 
easterly basaltic summit in Germany. This edge, how- 
ever, does not run from the south-east to the north- 
west like that of the Jura, but from east to west ; the 
great coal-basin of Upper Silesia lies at its southern foot. 
The mighty coal measures, in some places exposed, in 
others covered by a slight mantle of newer deposits, 
present themselves in the most favourable conditions for 



74 CENTRAL EUROPE 

exploitation. Only on the south-west of the basin, at 
the border of the Sudetic mountains, are the strata raised 
on end or overturned. At this point begin the mountains 
of Middle Germany. 

In the chart of Central European waters, hardly any 

phenomenon is more remarkable than the irregular 

course followed by the northern boundary 

Bohemia and of the Danube basiru The sources of 

SURROUNDING ,, XT , , , ,, ,, ... ,. , 

Uplands Naab and of the March he north of 

the fiftieth degree of latitude ; the districts 
of the Upper Palatinate and Moravia, through which 
they flow, slope southward towards Ratisbon and Vienna. 
Between these two provinces, however, which belong to 
the Danube basin, lies a broad uneven mass of land, 
the waters of which run northward from latitude 48^°, 
and are collected in one principal channel, that of the 
Moldau, which follows the line of the meridian. This 
land is the old Bohemian block, in the midst of which 
are found oceanic formations of very great antiquity, 
the oldest known in Europe, dating from a period in 
which this region was covered by a deep sea with 
blind animals. The coal-beds of Pilsen bear witness 
to a later continental period, for they were formed in 
an inland lake. The whole country round became 
one of the old cores of our continent that have main- 
tained their place through countless ages. Only the gentle 
slopes in the northern part of the block have in later 
epochs been overflowed sometimes by a sea coming in 
from the north. The freestone which characterises 
extensive tracts of North and North-Eastern Bohemia is a 
formation belonging to the shores of that sea, which in 
the Cretaceous period covered not only large parts of 
North Germany, but also this portion of old Bohemia. 
In those days Bohemia was not a country enclosed on the 
north. Even after the beginning of the Tertiary period, the 
lakes and swamps in which the Bohemian lignites were 
formed extended from the interior to stretches of country 
now belonging to the surface of the Saxon Erzgebirge. 



BLOCK MOUNTAINS AND TABLELANDS 75 

The full development of the great differences in height 
between the mountainous northern border and the low- 
lying interior of Bohemia was effected only in the middle 
and later Tertiary epochs. On the southern side of the 
Sudetic mountains, geologists have discovered great lines 
of fracture, clefts of which the southern lip has sunk to a 
lower position. But the faults which cut off the steep 
southern border of the Erzgebirge from the mountains of 
Karlsbad cause far more striking effects in the landscape. 
Along these fractures, by which the courses of the Eger 
and the Biela were determined, occur many hot springs 
and carbonic acid springs, while clusters of slender pillars 
and domed summits bear witness to the volcanic activity, 
for which a path was opened in the Tertiary period by 
deep-reaching fissures. This zone of bold mountains 
with a volcanic origin continues north-eastward through 
Lusatia to Lower Silesia, and marks the limit of the 
Sudetic mountains near Zittau. The space, however, be- 
tween them and the Erzgebirge is not left open ; in the 
interval lie the sandstone mountains, into which the Elbe 
has cut the gorge that serves as an outflow channel for all 
the rivers of Bohemia. 

The rivers complete their union in the fruitful basin of 
Melnik and Leitmeritz, where they were at one time 
gathered into a great lake. The principal river is 
certainly the Moldau ; the Elbe brings only one-third, 
while the Moldau brings one-half of the whole volume 
of water that passes from Bohemia to Saxony. The 
large boats which carry the Bohemian lignites and garden 
produce to North Germany begin their course at Leit- 
meritz ; the future may see Prague become the southern 
trading point of the Elbe district, and perhaps even a 
great system of canals carrying trade from the Moldau 
across to the Danube by way of Budweis and Linz. A 
wide passage-way stands invitingly open between the 
broad and ancient ridges at the south-eastern end of 
the Bohemian Forest. 

These latter mountains, which form the Bavarian face 
of the old forest fastness of Bohemia, are cut through to 



76 CENTRAL EUROPE 

the north of their centre by the often-disputed Gate of 
Furth. This pass lies barely 1500 feet high, and its 
direction is exactly that of the line between Ratisbon and 
Prague. As the towns of Eger and Budweis grew up on 
the outskirts of the Bohemian Forest along roads that pass 
round its mountains, so Pilsen grew up at this passage- 
way of nations. Southward of it lie the broadest and 
highest portions of the chain, long ridges the summits of 
which are rounded and seldom rocky, the highest of them, 
like the Arber (4780 feet), rising above the tree-line and 
having little dark tarns lying in rocky nooks upon their 
slopes. Beyond, to the south, lies the Bavarian Forest, 
lifting its steep summits above the Danube valley and 
the foreland of the Alps. 

At the north-west corner of Bohemia stands the 
Fichtel Gebirge, a modest range of wooded heights 
easily encircled by the roads from Eger into the Upper 
Palatinate and into the Vogtland. 

Very different from the radial river system of the 
Fichtel Gebirge, and very different too from the longi- 
tudinal valleys between the broad ridges of the Bohemian 
Forest, is the disposition of watercourses in the Saxon 
Erzgebirge. The Eger, and farther east, the Biele, 
running parallel to the mountains on their steep southern 
border, collect the streams which in narrow valley chinks 
come down the majestic mountain-side. On the north, 
however, where the high rim of the block softens to 
rounded heads, the courses eroded by the rivers of 
Saxony down the gentle undulating slope lie at first in 
wide hollows, then in deep, narrow gorges spanned by 
bold railway bridges, and lastly, as they approach the 
lowlands, in open dales again. The tilted plain which 
determines their direction is an abraded surface, a 
wreck produced by destructive atmospheric influences, 
which have left nothing remaining but the foundation 
of an old folded range that ran to the north-east. 
Between the belts of primitive rock lie basins of sedi- 
ment, important because they contain thick seams of 
coal. In former times, the primitive rocks with their 




j3u* Edhibtirgh. Geatjpapliical Tils 



-OROGRAPHICAL. 




_T. G 3 ar th. aLcnaew. 



BLOCK MOUNTAINS AND TABLELANDS 77 

veins of ore, were the basis upon which rested the 
life of the population. Silver-mining peopled the moun- 
tains, and brought into existence, among its loftiest 
summits, the highest towns of the continent. These have 
survived the exhaustion of their vital nerve, and eke out a 
scanty existence by domestic industries. The strongest 
pulse of life now beats around the coal-beds of Zwickau 
and Chemnitz. The position of industrial towns, rather 
than the uniform contour of the country, has determined 
the situation and the importance of the many ways that 
lead from Saxony to Bohemia. 

The inappropriate name of " Saxon Switzerland " is 
popularly applied to the north-western portion of a sand- 
stone mass which occupies a great part of Northern 
Bohemia, is intersected by the Elbe, and pushes forward 
its eastern outposts between the primitive rocks of the 
county of Glatz and also across the border of Moravia. 
The middle part of this horizontally laid sandstone table 
between the Iser and the Elbe, clearly displays the simple 
plateau formation, but even here the waters intersecting 
the strata flow between banks of sandstone that are 
abrupt and sometimes very high. The disintegrating 
action of water has operated most strongly, however, 
upon the circumference of the table, as in the " Saxon 
Switzerland " and the celebrated rocky scenes of Aders- 
bach and Wekelsdorf on the border of Silesia ; while in 
Silesia itself, the Heuscheuer furnishes a similar example 
of a freestone block which has undergone profound 
disintegration. 

Scenes of great beauty are presented where a mighty 
river flows through a lane of pale proud rock ; where 
wild rocky walls give place to smiling glades along a 
friendly river-bank ; or where, high on the summit of the 
Konigstein, appear the walls of a virgin fortress, with a 
peaceful little township sunning itself on the shore below. 
The variety of the mountain forms is greatly increased, 
however, by the occurrence of volcanic rocks, slim pillars 
of basalt and phonolite, which bring into the landscape 
not only other lines but also other colours, whether it be 



78 CENTRAL EUROPE 

the gloomy darkness of their naked stone, or the cheerful 
woodlands glowing in the fertile mould of their detritus. 
In particular, the borderland of Lusatia towards Bohemia 
gains from the presence of such bold intruders an unusual 
wealth and variety of forms. 

Above the softly undulating profile of the broad Iser 
chain, with its high, marshy, dividing valleys, rises to east- 
ward the lofty ridge of the Riesen Gebirge, with summits 
crowned by broken rocks. Around the south side of its 
granitic centre lies a mantle of old slates, divided through 
ten miles of their extent by the longitudinal valley in which 
the sources of the Elbe gather. Micaschists compose the 
pyramid of the Schneekoppe (5260 feet high), which rests 
upon a granite base. 

On the east the primitive rocks of the Riesen Gebirge 
disappear beneath the ridges of the Waldenburg coal basin, 
which is dominated by steep porphyritic mountains. At 
the opening at Landeshut (1770 feet), which is the most 
direct link between Breslau and Prague, the coal 
measures of this basin pass over into Bohemia. Not 
until they reach the foot of the Heuscheuer Gebirge do 
they disappear beneath the freestone formation, which 
extending from Bohemia into Silesia, defines, with the 
rocks of Adersbach, the high central pan of the Walden- 
burg basin. From this a saddle leads over towards the 
south-east into the deep hollow of Glatz, which is so shut 
in by mighty masses of primitive rock that its waters, col- 
lected by the Neisse, are only able to escape north- 
wards to the Silesian plain through a deeply cut gorge. 
While, like the Riesen Gebirge, the primitive ridges on 
the north and south-west of the county of Glatz strike 
towards the south-east, the gneiss and old schists of the 
Schneeberg beyond Glatz, where the basins of the 
Baltic, the North, and the Black Seas meet, run towards 
the south-west. A south-westerly grain also prevails 
among the rocks of the Altvater Gebirge and the adjoin- 
ing plateau on the border of Moravia, which is intersected 
by remote meandering valleys. The transition to the 
eastern limit of Bohemia, which is the lowest of her 



BLOCK MOUNTAINS AND TABLELANDS 79 

borders, is thus prepared in the eastern wing of the 
Sudetic mountains. Between the granitic heights lie easy- 
openings for traffic between Bohemia and Moravia. The 
basin of the March interposes an independent formation, 
resembling the foreland of the Alps, between the ancient 
masses of Central Germany and the folded ranges in 
southern Central Europe. The Moravian Gate between 
the Sudetic mountains and the Carpathians (hardly 1000 
feet high) is the lowest of the passages between the 
Danube and the Silesian plain, from which islands of old 
rock still rise to considerable heights. 

Opposite to the Bohemian group stand the mountains 
of the Upper and Lower Rhine, independent masses of very 
old rock. If with the latter we include 
not only the closely connected Ardennes, HE ABL ^" 

, , J , J „ ,,,TT LANDS OF CEN- 

but also the structurally related Hartz T ral and South 

Mountains, lying like a severed island at Germany— 

some distance, we shall at once perceive Thuringia, 

the bounds of the triangular territory of Hesse ' Fran " 

b J CONIA, AND 

Central and South - Western Germany, swabia. 
whose features present not a few points 
of structural and correlated unity. The Saale and the 
Upper Weser, the Main, and the Neckar, main water- 
courses around which lie the habitations of four German 
tribes, all flow through winding valleys cut into table- 
lands of sedimentary rock. These tablelands are closely 
connected, for their continuity is only interrupted by 
the promontory of older mountains which runs, under 
the names of the Franconian and the Thuringian Forests, 
north-westward from the Fichtel Gebirge to Eisenach. 
This promontory is a long, narrow range, a strip of raised 
land, between depressions on either side. The Triassic 
deposits which once clothed its surface have been worn 
away and the older foundations laid bare. 

The country overlooked by these heights presents, 
from the Thuringian Forest to the Hartz Mountains, the 
outward features of a plateau ; to the geologist it is a 
trough filled by the three members of the Triassic group, 



80 CENTRAL EUROPE 

concentrically disposed in close conjunction and inter- 
sected by many lines of fracture. The wooded outer 
border is formed by variegated sandstone ; the next belt 
contains a table of shell limestone, ill watered, but occu- 
pied by agriculture ; the centre, which is the garden 
country of Erfurt, is a shallow basin of red marls. Into 
the strata of these rocks the Saale and its tributaries 
cut their valleys. Their unsteady direction contrasts 
strangely with the straightness of a valley in the northern 
neighbourhood. The valley of the Leine at Gottingen, 
which runs in the direction of the meridian, marks a 
long rift in the most northerly of these great slabs of 
Triassic sandstone which, under varying names, prevail 
throughout the district of the Upper Weser from the 
Soiling to the Rhon, and even farther to the Spessart. The 
Hessian mountain district, however, appears clearly differ- 
entiated from the wider spread area of the Triassic sand- 
stone by the unusual development of recent volcanic 
rocks. Germany nowhere possesses any other accumu- 
lation of basalt comparable with the flat cone of the 
Vogelsberg, which rises in long slopes from a base 
thirty miles in diameter. In the High Rhon also a base 
of Triassic sandstone is crowned by a ridge of basalt ; 
the poor, treeless mountains here divide Hesse and 
Franconia. 

If, taking the direction opposed to the flow of the 
water, we follow up the Main from Aschaffenburg, or the 
Neckar from Heidelberg, and approach the region of their 
sources, the varying nature of the river bank will show us 
the geological formations of Franconia and Swabia in 
regular succession from the wooded Triassic sandstone 
mountains of the Spessart and the Odenwald, through 
the fertile plains and the sloping vineyards of the shell 
limestone, to the gentle hills of red marl. Ultimately 
we stand in front of the escarpment of the Jurassic 
limestone. 

The Jura chain, from the Falls of the Rhine to the 
junction of the sources of the Main, is the largest lime- 
stone range of inner Germany. While it slopes gently 



C3EKTKAL 1 




TLv Edinburgh. G^ogr optical laatitnli 



- GEOLOGICAL 



30 




EXPLANATION OF COLOURING. 
c.O Glaciers. 
Quaternary. 
Tertiary. 
Cretaceous. 

Jurassic. f Mesozoic. 
Triassic. 
Palaeozoic. 



BLOCK MOUNTAINS AND TABLELANDS 81 

towards the Naab and Danube, it breaks off sharply with a 
marked escarpment on the inner side of its curve, where 
appear the older deposits. The whole chain forms two 
wings, separated by the valley of the Ries at Nord- 
lingen, a depression which has volcanic rock emerging 
from its lines of fracture, and the Wornitz flowing through 
it. Here the road from Augsburg to Nuremberg finds an 
easy passage open from the Wornitz to the Regnitz, which 
latter river flows northward through a sandy plain full of 
fir woods. It reaches the Main among the fruitful gardens 
and below the sloping hop plantations of Bamberg. 

Eastward of this busy valley-road rises the Franconian 
Jura, the northern part of which, though only of moderate 
height, offers to lovers of the picturesque curious caverns 
and beautiful formations. At the point where the curve 
of the Franconian Jura turns from the south towards 
the south-west the mountains drop to a pass 1380 feet 
high, which is crossed by the Ludovic Canal, connecting 
the Regnitz and the Altmuhl, Bamberg and Kelheim. At 
the end of this connection the Danube lies 370 feet higher 
than the Main. The difference of height is even more 
marked in the Swabian Jura, where Ulm and Sigmaringen 
on the Danube lie 800 feet above the corresponding cities 
of the Neckar, although the highest crest of the mountain 
is from 13 to 19 miles away from the Danube, and scarcely 
half so far from the valley of the Neckar. The steep 
northern face is cleft by deep ravines between which 
precipitous tables of rock, separated from the main body 
of the mountain, rise in peninsulas and even islands, fit 
for the site of medieval castles. 

In addition to the striking formations usually charac- 
teristic of limestone mountains, the caverns, hidden waters 
and amazingly abundant springs, the Swabian Jura has 
many outbreaks of volcanic rock, which in some places have 
only become exposed through the action of denudation, 
but now, on account of their hardness, overtop the hills 
of the neighbourhood. The real glories of the landscape, 
however, are the Tertiary volcanoes in the area of depres- 
sion at Hegau, to the north-west of the Lake of Constance ; 



82 CENTRAL EUROPE 

the Hohentwiel, upon whose summit the glaciers of the 
Alps unloaded their stony freight, has even more wonder- 
ful tales to tell to the student of nature than to the poet 
by whom its historic memories are awakened to new and 
glorified life. 

The low plain of the Upper Rhine, from Basle to 
Mainz, is a typical example of a long-drawn rift valley. 
The Mountains Beneath it lie buried the central heights of 
and Lowland a mountain range. The Vosges and the 
of the Upper Black Forest are remnants of this range, 
Rhine - much worn away by later atmospheric ac- 

tion, and their steep slopes towards the depression, as well 
as their gentler outer slopes, show distinct traces, both in 
contour and internal framework, of their original connec- 
tion. In comparing these two mountain sections, however, 
we must bear in mind that the eastern wing always lies 
rather more to the north, because the grain of the old 
mountains, which were cut in two by the trench of the 
Upper Rhine valley, ran north-eastward. 

Easy roads go round both groups of mountains on 
the south ; the Rhine valley above Basle makes an opening 
through the Jura, while to the west lies a widely open pass 
1 150 feet high, the Burgundy Gate — the "trouee de 
Belfort " — over which canal-boats float from the Rhine to 
the Doubs and the Rhone. On the immediate borders 
of these easily passable valleys both the massifs lift 
their loftiest summits, peaks of gneiss and granite from 
4500 to 4900 feet high. But even south of the latitude of 
Strassburg the primitive rocks disappear beneath a bed of 
variegated sandstone, which creeping up the slopes of either 
range, from Lorraine and from Swabia, gradually covers 
them to the summit, imparting to the northern parts of 
both groups forms that are flatter, and along the edges of 
valleys more abrupt. 

To the north of the Vosges is the Pass of Saverne, 
1325 feet high, beneath which the Rhine and Marne 
Canal is carried through a tunnel. To this corresponds, 
on the right bank of the Rhine, a little more to the north, 



BLOCK MOUNTAINS AND TABLELANDS 83 

the low hilly country which offers to the traffic between 
Karlsruhe and Swabia the choice of so many roads. As 
might be expected the Neckar seeks a passage to the 
Rhine across this hill country. 

In the Odenwald the mountains of the Upper Rhine 
once more rise to considerable altitudes. The fractured 
western slope, adorned by the vineyards and fruit gardens 
of the " Bergstrasse," cuts through a group of old granites, 
but the eastern part of the range is formed by the flat ridges 
of the sandstone, on which, like a button on a cap, is set the 
basaltic top of the Katzenbuckel. In the Bavarian Palatin- 
ate, opposite to the Odenwald, the Hardt mountains form 
the last link of the western mountains of the Upper 
Rhine. These, as their name shows, and as would be 
expected from the sandstone composition of their heights, 
are a woodland of great extent, bordered along t-he eastern 
slopes by splendid vineyards. The north-western boundary 
of this mountain country is formed by the great main road 
of the Palatinate from Kaiserslautern to Zweibrucken, along 
which so many armies have passed between Mainz and 
Metz. 

The remarkable symmetry of the mountains on the 
two sides of the Upper Rhine extends to their forelands. 
Lorraine, like Swabia, is a graduated terraced district, the 
outlines of which are marked by the edges of formations 
following in regular succession one on another. Different 
reaches of the northward rivers Saar, Nied, and Moselle 
follow the scarps of the various deposits, none of which, 
however, assumes so conspicuous an importance in the 
landscape as does the Swabian Jura. The hills of Metz 
to the right and left of the Moselle belong to two different 
steps in the successive formations ; the table mountains of 
the left bank, which carry the higher forts, mark the escarp- 
ment of the middle stage of the Jura. Their strata are the 
same as those which contain the rich iron ore of Lorraine 
and Luxemburg. 

Thanks to its position, to the manner in which it is 
enclosed, and to the slight elevation above the sea (be- 
tween Basle and Mainz from 900 feet to 260 feet), the 
7 



84 CENTRAL EUROPE 

low plain of the Upper Rhine, twenty miles wide and 
nearly two hundred miles long, is the warmest and most 
cheerful valley in Germany. The highest degree of fertility 
is exhibited by the loess deposits, with their covering of 
orchards and vineyards, clothing the hills at the foot of the 
mountains. 

The oldest Rhine deposits of rubble, which not far 
from Bingen lie 500 feet above the level of the river, 
are to be found at Mainz only, far below the plane of 
the valley's surface, and possibly below the level of the 
sea. In spite of having suffered this great tilt of its 
original bed, the Rhine has maintained its place. The 
crisis in the river's history has, however, left its imperish- 
able marks in the highly varied character of the banks, in 
the deep gorge below Bingen, and the flat surface of the 
thick bed of gravels above that place ; and the rapids of 
Bingen remain its eloquent memorial. The fall of the 
Rhine, which here suddenly increases to ten feet in a mile, 
is very slight between Mainz and Bingen, only 0.8 inches 
in a mile. Between the vine-clad slopes of the Rheingau 
the river flows broad (700 to 800 yards) and majestic, 
curving but little and occasionally divided by long fish- 
shaped islands. The gentlest slope, however, of its bed 
lies above Mainz. At Oppenheim ends a reach of the 
Upper Rhine which exhibited, before the regulating works 
of the present century, a tangle of wide and ever-changing 
curves, that now approached the right and now the left 
bank of the wide valley. 

The course of the river in its Baden reach has been 
shortened by fifty miles — that is to say, by 23 per cent, 
of its former length — and its waters have been, as far 
as possible, collected into one channel firmly walled in 
by dikes, while the mere increase in the fall has enabled 
this channel to cut itself deeper into the bed of the 
valley. Navigation has thereby been the gainer. Up to 
Mannheim there is now an assured depth of 6 feet 5 
inches, and up to Strassburg of 5 feet. The Main is 
canalised upward as far as Frankfurt, and navigable 
for ships of 1000 tons. Mannheim and Frankfurt are 



BLOCK MOUNTAINS AND TABLELANDS 85 

thus centres of the great inland water traffic of South 
Germany. 

If we go down the Rhine from Bingen, the boat, 
after gliding beneath the sunny slopes of Riidesheim, 
enters an overshadowed rocky ravine, which „ 

r 1 1 • \ o THE MOUN- 

at the rock of the Lorelei narrows to 100 TAINS f the 
yards, but at the same time compels the Lower 
river to deepen its bed to 90 feet. The Rhine 
waters are enclosed between steep walls AND THE 
and divided by rocky crags and islands. 
Castles stand in the midst of the stream or high above 
it on projecting rocks. Picturesque spots nestle in nooks 
of the bank, or form a belt along its narrow border. At 
times the valley opens to cheerful basins. That of Cob- 
lentz receives the junctions of the Lahn and the Moselle, 
which emerge from narrow winding valleys. Once more, 
however, the Rhine valley closes in and narrows. It 
is not until the Sieben-Gebirge, near Bonn, that the hills 
begin to recede and the bay of the Cologne lowland 
opens. The encroachment of this diminishes the breadth 
of the mountains between Bingen and Bonn to sixty miles ; 
between Wiesbaden and Dortmund, and between Saar- 
briicken and Liege, the breadth is twice as great. 

Thick population and noisy industrial life fills the 
valleys of the Saar, Ruhr, Meuse, and Sambre, which cut 
into the coalfields. In sharp contrast with the active life 
reigning here, as well as amid the busy traffic of the 
Rhine Valley and the towns and gardens along the Main, 
is the silence of the sparsely peopled highland that 
stretches between the valleys. Although their elevation 
on either side of the Rhine is on an average less than 2000 
feet, the undulating high-plains of Eifel and Westerwald are 
subject to a raw and rainy climate. The Eifel and Wester- 
wald would be the most monotonous uplands of Germany, 
if it were not for the peculiar charm imparted to them by 
volcanic forms. The Eifel is the only district of Germany 
in which volcanoes exist similar to those of Auvergne, 
although much smaller. They are of so recent a date that 



86 CENTRAL EUROPE 

the structure of their craters and the course of their 
lava streams remain in good preservation and are easy 
of study. Essentially different from the craters are the 
funnels of explosion, whose hollows are filled by round 
lakes — the Maars. The most considerable of these, the 
Lake of Laach, is a very gem of beauty, but it needs to be 
sought out. The trachytic peaks of the Sieben-Gebirge, 
on the contrary, which adorn the horizon of Bonn, stand 
close to the Rhine. 1 

The Ardennes are the immediate continuation of the 
Lower Rhenish mountains. The character of the landscape, 
however, softens towards the west. Amid diminishing 
heights the valley in which the Meuse cuts across the 
highland between Mezieres and Namur, is in its confor- 
mation a complete but tamer counterpart of the Rhine 
valley. As the elevation of the wooded range grows 
smaller, so also does its breadth. Only on its northern 
edge, marked approximately by the Meuse and Sambre 
line through Liege, Namur, and Charleroi, and farther on 
by the valley of Hainault, does the range follow the south- 
western direction conspicuous in its German portion. Its 
southern border, the outline of which is plainly trace- 
able along the reach of the Meuse between Sedan and 
Mezieres, and along the continuation of this line on either 
hand through the valleys of the Chiers and the Sor- 
monne, turns so distinctly towards the north-west that 
the two borders plainly converge upon Valenciennes. In 
this direction the Ardennes run out to a point. Their 
southern border has been secured by France, and along 
the Meuse a tongue of French territory penetrates deep 
into the Ardennes to the fortress of Givet, the key of 
the Meuse valley. The softly undulating hill country 
north of the Sambre and Meuse, in the depth of which 
lie further thick coal-beds, forms a gradual transition 
from the Ardennes to the low-lying foreland, and from 
Upper Belgium to the Netherlands. 

1 The abundance of mineral springs characteristic of this volcanic region 
recurs more markedly on both slopes of the Taunus ; the summits, however, of 
this chain are not of volcanic origin, but owe their altitude, approaching 3000 
feet, to the hardness of quartzites withstanding atmospheric destruction. 



BLOCK MOUNTAINS AND TABLELANDS 87 

Near the parting between the basins of the Rhine 

and the Weser, the ancient formations of the Lower 

Rhenish mountains, steeply raised and 

running to the north-east, disappear be- Hartz and 

,, ,? a , ! , r ,1 TT the Mountains 

neath the fiat plateau of the Hesse moun- Weser 

tain country ; but sixty miles to the east, 
on the parting between the basins of the Weser and the 
Elbe, they come to light again in the mighty block of the 
Hartz mountains. Here, too, their strata strike north-east- 
ward, and their high pressed folds have lost their peaks, 
and only the torso, a mass with shallow domed summits, 
remains. In the Hartz, however, the whole width of the 
base is not upstanding, but only a fragment bounded by 
lines of fracture. Along its length from south-east to 
north-west the height of the group rises gradually from 
1000 to 2000 feet. Thus the Lower Hartz, which is 
already to a great extent denuded of woods and given 
over to agriculture, differs from the thickly wooded 
Upper Hartz district. In both parts great masses of 
granite and porphyry rise high out of the sedimentary 
rock, the bare Brocken to a height of 3746 feet. 

Peculiar charm is imparted by the old mining works 
of the uplands, the deep shafts of which went lower than 
the sea-level. The hill country about Mansfeld also, the 
south-eastern end of the Hartz mountains, which is rich 
in copper and silver, is enlivened by mining operations. 
Although the Hartz range forms a lofty island overtopping 
its environment, the country around is by no means 
monotonous. It is dominated by a number of short and 
narrow lines of hill divided by lower lying stretches and 
following the same north-western direction as the northern 
line of fracture of the Hartz mountains. Thus the country 
north of these mountains is filled to a distance of thirty- 
five miles by a whole swarm of these mountain fragments, 
which, whether covered with leafy wood or bearing the 
ruins of castles, animate the landscape by a succession 
of changing pictures. This conformation of the country 
is interrupted by an inlet of the lowland at Brunswick, 
but directly west of this it begins again on both sides of 



88 CENTRAL EUROPE 

the Leine, and here attains a considerable breadth. Beyond 
this river, whose valley opens a most important communi- 
cation between Central and North Germany to the west of 
the Hartz mountains, rise to 1300 feet the two parallel 
ridges of the Deister and the Siintel, which are of import- 
ance to their neighbour, Hanover, because they supply it 
not only with excellent sandstone for building, but also 
for purposes of manufacture with good coal from the 
Cretaceous formations. The southern slope of the Siintel 
adjoins the Weser just after this river has cut its way 
through the most northerly of the Triassic slabs that 
stretch northward from Hesse. The river here follows the 
southern foot of the hills for twenty miles before traversing 
in the famous Westphalian Gate at Minden. Westward of 
the Weser the range continues for forty miles. Parallel 
with it on the south-west, beyond the long hollow of 
Osnabriick, runs the Teutoburger Wald, with elevations 
equally gentle, and an extent even longer. Between this 
and the northern border of the Lower Rhenish highland 
lies the country in which the Lippe and Ems originate — 
the inlet of the Munster lowland. Its eastern angle at 
Paderborn is shut in by the Egge Mountain, which running 
southward, links together the two chains. 

Note on Authorities. — Only one volume, West und Siid-Deutschland, 
has yet appeared of Richard Lepsius's colossal work, Geologie von 
Deutschla,7id und den Angrenzenden Landem, 1887-1892. Most of the 
sheets of his geological map of the German Empire are therefore without 
any explanatory text such as F. von Hauer has supplied in a short space to 
all the eleven sheets of his general geological map of Austria-Hungary. 

A literary guide through the rich special literature is presented by 
K. Keilhack and E. Zimmermann {Abhandlungen der Koniglichen 
Preussischen Geologischen Landesanstalt. — Neue Folge, xiv., 1893, xxvi., 
1897). 



CHAPTER VII 

THE NORTH GERMAN LOWLAND AND THE 
GERMAN SEAS 

In more than one place the boundary of the mountains of 
Central Germany resembles a coast-line rich in islands. 
Even at a considerable distance heights of firm rock lift 
up their bold heads out of the loose diluvial land. Most 
of them fare but ill ; human labour is swift to attack 
them. The limestone mountains of Riidersdorf, to the 
east of Berlin, are being so quickly quarried that deep 
hollows are already yawning where hills once stood. 
The proud chalk cliffs of Riigen, however, still shine out 
to sea, and the fretting waves still toss round the rock of 
Heligoland. In other parts, the deepest borings of the 
world have dived beneath the flat and uniform upper 
surface into the fundamental rock, and there reached its 
treasures of salt, gypsum, and coal. On the whole, 
however, our knowledge of the outline and composition 
of these deeper rocks is but fragmentary. 

The filling up of their hollows and the levelling of 
their surfaces was begun even in the Tertiary period ; 
partly by the seas which entered through the Moravian 
gap into Upper Silesia and Galicia, and in the north 
only gradually abandoned Northern Germany ; partly by 
deposits that took shape on the new mainland, in whose 
lakes and swamps the products of a luxuriant vegetation 
formed those beds of lignite which exist below the bays 
of the Silesian and Saxon lowland, and on the surface 
of the Mark, no less than in the Bohemian basin and 
the Alpine foreland. These Tertiary formations, however, 
were subjected to the destructive catastrophe of the 
Glacial Period, which dislocated their strata, and buried 



90 CENTRAL EUROPE 

them under new formations, thus exercising a long- 
enduring influence on the surface of the country. 

The whole North German plain shows traces of a 
considerable movement of rocks to the southward. 
Behind every upstanding pillar of basalt, on its southern 
side, lies a space covered with scattered blocks, among 
which mingle some derived from Scandinavia, Finland, 
and the Baltic Islands, the proportion of these increas- 
ing as we go northward. Geologists have recognised 
that this change of place cannot have been effected by 
icebergs floating upon the seas that overspread the plain, 
but that the glaciers of the Scandinavian highland pushed 
forward their masses of ice into Germany, and there 
produced upon the land those effects which only glacier 
masses can produce. The boulder clay, formed as 
a ground moraine moving forward beneath a weight 
of ice, is interspersed throughout with great and 
little stones that have neither order nor stratification,, 
their surface being often characteristically polished and 
scratched. Even blocks of immense size were carried 
down by the slow stream of ice, which on the mountains 
of Central Germany sometimes reached as high as 1500 
or even 2000 feet. Its border followed the edge of these 
mountains from Duisburg to the Moravian gap, and also 
that of the Carpathians as far as Sambor. It also 
penetrated far into the interior of the mountains near the 
Thuringian Forest, as far as Gotha and Saalfeld, and 
along the Elbe as far as Schandau, as well as deep into 
secluded valleys of the Sudetic Mountains. The most 
evident effect left upon the landscape by this great spread 
of northern ice, is probably the complete levelling of 
extensive tracts sheathed by the clay of the ground 
moraines. The fruitful fields south of Breslau and north 
of Leipzig were thus produced. But we shall seek in vain 
along the southern limits of the northern diluvium for 
typical terminal moraines. If they ever existed, they 
have long ago been destroyed again. It is only in a more 
northern portion of Germany that raised morainic 
formations still persist in the scenery. This region 



NORTH GERMAN LOWLAND AND SEAS 



9i 




92 CENTRAL EUROPE 

experienced a second invasion of ice, proceeding as before 
from Scandinavia, which overpowered the German Baltic 
provinces, but did not progress very far towards the south. 
It would seem at times to have crossed the southern 
ridges in Silesia and the Mark, but never the Elbe. 
The retreating steps of this second incursion of ice appear 
to be marked by broad, eroded valleys worn out by the 
swelling waters into which the ice dissolved. 

This second glacial period seems to have lasted 
specially long in the Baltic provinces of Germany, on 
the summit of the Baltic ridge. Many places along the 
southern border of this ridge, and considerable expanses 
of its surface, have been formed by curved rows of 
great terminal moraines. One direct consequence of the 
irregular outline of surface left behind by the later ice 
period is the abundance of lakes existing on the Baltic 
heights. 

The circumstance that the latest, and as far as the 
conformation of the country is concerned, the most 
important manifestations of the Glacial Period, came from 
the Baltic Sea, and shaped around it concentric zones of 
morainic formations, leads us to start from this sea 
in considering the North German Lowland. Around its 
waters lies the Baltic Ridge. From this we descend 
southwards into the zone of great valleys (Warsaw, 
Berlin, Hamburg) which narrows towards the west. On 
the southern border of this rises a second inland row of 
hill ranges. From these the prospect extends over the 
wide valley basins of the Silesian Oder, the Saxon 
Elbe, and the Hanoverian Aller to the front of the 
mountains whose spurs press forward between these 
three valleys. Thus it may be observed that the north- 
western ends of four zones of North German country 
approach the North Sea. They do not, however, carry 
their natural contrasts in full force up to that sea, for 
its coast is bordered by a lowland that extends in in- 
creasing breadth from Schleswig to the Netherlands, and 
of this the dunes, marshes, and moors constitute a separate 
natural division. 



NORTH GERMAN LOWLAND AND SEAS 93 

The Baltic is a sea of recent origin. It is the most 
sunken portion of the great flat tract between the Scandi- 
navian Mountains and Central Europe. 
The sinkings by which the hollows of its Baltic 
basin were fashioned continued through 
the interval between the two Glacial Periods. Even 
when the Ice-Age was over, the shore of the basin 
underwent variations of level which have repeatedly 
altered the manner of its connection with the ocean. The 
Swedish lakes mark the place of an old Baltic outlet ; and 
when this gap closed, the Baltic became an inland sea, 
whose surplus waters escaped through a river that may be 
compared with the Neva. The position of this outflow 
seems to have changed, for the sinking of the ridge of land 
between Jutland and Sweden submerged several eroded 
channels which are now arms of the sea. Thus arose the 
Sound and the Belts. 

The shallowness of these arms limits the free exchange 
of water with the ocean, and diminishes the saltness of 
the surface water, so that at Alsen the Baltic is less salt 
than the ocean by one-fifth, and at Dantzig by one-half, 
and this enclosed basin is consequently more easily 
affected by the frosts of the neighbouring climates and 
its navigation is liable to be interrupted every winter. 
The interruption lasts longest in the northern and eastern 
portions of the Baltic ; the central basin suffers compara- 
tively little. Libau remains free from ice in most winters, 
but the harbours on the Baltic coast of Germany enjoy 
by no means the advantages in this respect which might be 
expected from their southern position. They lie some 
distance from the open coast, at the head of inlets with 
enclosed waters or river mouths, and are closed to naviga- 
tion for appreciable periods. The average duration of the 
ice-block in the open sea at Memel is twelve days, at 
Swinemunde twenty, and at Travemunde twelve ; while 
the inner harbour of Memel remains closed on an average 
for 142 days, that of Neufahrwasser near Dantzig for eighty- 
one, Stettin for sixty-one, the Greifswalder Bodden for 
fifty-eight, and Lubeck for thirty-two days. These varia- 



94 CENTRAL EUROPE 

tions are in great measure due to the conformation of 
the coast. 

The slanting waves that strike the coast of Eastern 
Pomerania and Russia form deposits of boulders and 
sand, and the constant recurrence of waves running in 
the same direction gradually pushes these towards the 
north-east, and builds up curving strips of sand which 
extend like a loosely hanging chain from one projecting 
point to another. Becoming gradually heightened and 
strengthened by the accumulation of dunes, they cut off 
shallow pools from the open sea, and the rivers of the 
country convert these pools into fresh-water lakes with 
greater or less completeness, according to the degree in 
which they are cut off from communication with the 
waters of the sea. Thus arise the "haffs" or fresh-water 
lakes lying behind the " nehrungs " or bars of land whose 
coherence is occasionally broken by an inlet — a "deep." 

The type of the " haff " coast is most fully developed 
in East Prussia. The high projection of the Samland 
cape, which is rich in amber, makes a firm link between 
the two retreating " nehrungs," neither of which rejoins 
the main-coast for sixty miles, the Kurische Nehrung 
doing so to the north of the Memel, and the Frische 
Nehrung, continued by the dune that borders the delta of 
the Vistula, at Zoppot. These two bars are only broken 
at their northern ends, at Memel and Pillau, by " deeps " 
which open a highway for ships to the mouths of the 
Niemen and the Pregel. The " haffs " behind have 
already suffered considerable diminution ; the Kurische 
Haff owing to the formation of the delta of the Niemen, 
which consists of great marshes, and the Frische Haff to 
a slight extent owing to the alluvial deposits of the Pregel, 
and to a great extent because of the fruitful richly cultivated 
lowland with which the Vistula has completely filled its 
broad western end. 

The Vistula sends but two branches into the Frische 
Haff, while the main river reaches the sand dunes by 
the sea near Dantzig, at the foot of the hill country 
rising on the west from its lowland. The point at 



NORTH GERMAN LOWLAND AND SEAS 95 

which it breaks through the sand-hills has changed 
even in the nineteenth century. The western portion 
of the great gulf of Dantzig is sheltered from the open 
sea by the peninsula of Hela, twenty miles long. With 




Fig. 17. — A Prussian Haff. 



this begins the monotonous flat coast that bounds East 
Pomerania, a shore with numerous border lakes lying 
behind it. 

The great fresh-water basin at the mouth of the Oder 
also bears the name of a Haff. But the division of this 
from the open sea is not effected by a sandy " nehrung," 
but by the islands of Wollin and Usedom. 



9 6 



CENTRAL EUROPE 



The " boddens " which occur along the coast are eccen- 
trically branched shallow bays, the outlines of which have 
been determined sometimes by the accidental shapes 
of half-submerged blocks of diluvial or older rock, and 
sometimes by later action of the sea, either in the form 
of a destroying invasion of its waves, or more often by 



_M~iles 




Fig. 18. — The Boddens of Pomerania. 



new marine formations which have sought to connect a 
chain of islands, and have succeeded to a greater or less 
extent in that aim. The complex coast-line of the island 
of Riigen is the classic example. Narrow, gently curving 
sandbanks link together some old cores of undulating 
diluvial land around the old high-island of Jasmund (527 
feet high), beneath whose crown of beech trees shine the 
white chalk cliffs of Stubben Kammer, forming a beautiful 
landmark from the distant German shore. Arcona, at 



NORTH GERMAN LOWLAND AND SEAS 97 

the north-eastern point of Rugen, needs a cable only fifty 
miles in length to connect it with Scania ; and the most 
westerly of the islets is but thirty-five miles from Moen, 
the nearest of the Danish islands, with which it is connected 
by a line of ten fathoms' depth. At this point we leave 




FiG. 19. — The Forden of Holstein. 



the open main basin of the Baltic, in which there are 
depths of as much as 234 fathoms, and enter the narrow, 
shallower waters of the Belts. 

On the other side of the broad gulf of Neustadt, into 
the head of which the Trave flows, a third type of coast 
formation begins on the shores of Holstein : that of the 
" forden." These are inlets running at right angles to the 



98 CENTRAL EUROPE 

course of the coast-line, and narrowing as they go up into 
the land : they are evidently submerged valleys. The 
most important of them, the inlet of Kiel, whose entrance 
narrows at Friedrichsort and so partly and advantage- 
ously encloses the inner recess, corresponds in a strik- 
ing manner to the upper valley of the Eider. It appears, 
indeed, to be an abandoned valley of this river, which was 
only diverted into another course by the Glacial Epoch. 
The accumulation of the ground moraine barred the return 
of the Eider to its old valley, even when the barrier of ice 
was dissolved, and compelled it permanently to take another 
way, by which it was led into the North Sea. In like manner, 
moraine hills form the western close of the valley of Ekern- 
forde. The " forden " of Schleswig-Holstein, for the very 
reason that they receive no rivers and no alluvial deposits, 
form the best natural harbours of the Baltic, whose coastal 
formation in other parts everywhere directs navigation to 
the mouths of the rivers. 

The connected belt of heights running round the 
southern basin of the Baltic from Courland to Schleswig is 
The B\ltic broken in three places by important rivers, 

Ridge of the widest breach being at the north-eastern 

Land. corner of the German Empire. All the 

north of East Prussia is a lowland, formed by the develop- 
ment of cross-connecting valleys, between the hollows of 
the Niemen and the Pregel. The Inster fills a channel 
that was once dug by an arm of the Niemen running into 
the Pregel, while on the other hand, the Deime, an arm of 
the Pregel, runs northward into the Kurische Haff. The 
plateau of Samland is surrounded by water on every side 
like an island. 

To the south of the Pregel the land begins gradually 
to rise towards the Prussian ridge. Hundreds of lakes, 
some of them basins with many branches, some long 
narrow channels with several pieces of water following 
one another like beads on a string, lie scattered among 
the hills of Masuria. With their border of greenwood, 
rising from the loamy soil of the shore in a wide fir 



NORTH GERMAN LOWLAND AND SEAS 99 

and pine region, they form scenes of which the beauty, 
if not winning, is powerful and stimulating. The 
most important of these lakes, Mauer and Spirding, 
cover more than forty square miles, and lie so nearly 
on the same level as many others adjacent, that with a 
very little assistance, they might be joined into a system of 
navigable waters from which existing outlets would run 
north and south to the Pregel and the Narew, the southern 
opening alone, however, being accessible to rafts. A more 
westerly group of lakes, from which the Drewenz flows 
south-westward to the Vistula, has a navigable outlet 
towards the north, to Elbing and the Frische Haff. The 
elevation of this lake country is but little less than the 
maximum height to which the Baltic ridge attains in 
the Thurmberg (1086 feet) near Dantzig, to west of the 
fertile Vistula valley. The varied outline, the abundance 
of water, and the fertility of its vicinity form a contrast 
with the poor and monotonous fir-woods of the Heath of 
Tuchel. 

A system of lakes comparable with that of East 
Prussia does not appear again until we have crossed the 
Oder and arrived among the high ridges of Mecklenburg, 
to the north of that nobly developed belt of terminal 
moraines belonging to the second Glacial Period, which has 
been traced from Oderberg north-westward to Schwerin. 
The most and the largest of Mecklenburg's six hundred and 
fifty lakes, including the Lake of Miiritz which has an 
area of fifty square miles, send their surplus waters into 
the Elbe. 

The last stretch of the Baltic Ridge, in the Cimbrian 
Peninsula, has a northerly direction. The moraine 
formations and the territory of the fertile boulder clay 
fill the delightful eastern parts of Schleswig-Holstein. 
The lakes of Eutin and Plon show their dark levels amid 
the light green foliage of the beech woods, while the 
waters of the sea are brought by deep fiords far up 
into the cheerful hills. The centre of the country is 
occupied by a flat and uniform sandy heath, sloping 
towards the west. In this direction the plateau is dissected 



ioo CENTRAL EUROPE 

into broad tongues, and between these, small strips of 
fertile marshland penetrate from the shore some distance 
into the country. From the diluvial plain of Holstein 
rises, suddenly and surprisingly, a peak of old firm rock, 
the gypsum of Segeberg. 

Modest as are the heights to which the Baltic Ridge 
attains, they have been sufficient to secure to the lands 
traversed by it a separate place in the course of German 
development, and often to divide their fortunes from those 
of the Hinterland. 

The same processes of nature that shaped the Baltic 
Ridge have been active also in the southern adjacent 
The Zone territory between the two ridges. Here, 
of Great too, appear the deposits of the second 
Valleys. Glacial Period; fertile flats of boulder 

clay, wide sandy plains, erratic blocks lying singly, 
or in accumulated hills that may be followed up for 
many miles. The forms, however, of the landscape have 
been less decisively affected by their accumulation than 
by the destruction which occurred a little later. The 
streams of melting waters that poured upon the ex- 
posed land as soon as the masses of ice began to retreat, 
cut into its surface broad deep valleys, which in many 
parts have determined the courses of our existing, feebler 
rivers, and in other parts have considerably facilitated 
artificial connections between these rivers (Fig. 16). The 
surface of the country and the border-line of the ice at 
the different stages of its retreat gave a westerly direction 
to the melting waters in the eastern parts, while farther 
to the west, in the lower valley of the Elbe, this direction 
became north-westerly. 

Among the many old valley courses two are to be 
distinguished as particularly important : the valley of 
Thorn and Eberswalde, and the main valley from Warsaw 
to Berlin. The former accompanies the southern edge of 
the Baltic Ridge from Lithuania to the confluence of the 
Havel, and receives in succession the following rivers : — 
the Bobr, the Narew, the Vistula, the Brahe, the Netze, 
the Warta, and the Oder (between Ciistrin and Oderberg). 



NORTH GERMAN LOWLAND AND SEAS 101 

The canals that connect this point with the Lower Havel 
have to wind their way through many glens which cannot 
have belonged to the bed of a gigantic river. Only at 
some period when the level of the valleys still lay 
considerably higher can the original Vistula have taken 
its course this way to the Elbe. Be this as it may, the 
western stretch of the main valley was the first to fall out 
of use, when the Oder began to make its way north- 
ward through the Pomeranian plateau to the Haff. The 
connection between the Oder and the Vistula, on the 
other hand, would appear to have ceased only after the 
valleys had been very deeply excavated. The summit 
level of the Bromberg Canal lies only ioo feet above 
the water of the Vistula, and the valley eroded at 
the southern foot of the ridge by this river continues 
westward, in undiminished width, between high banks, 
from the point at which the stream quitted it. The little 
river Brahe looks like a dwarf in it who has slipped into 
the armour of a giant. 

Similar phenomena of diluvial origin occur in the 
main valley, which begins in the broad, open basin of 
Warsaw. From the Vistula it may be followed through 
the valley of its tributary, the Bzura, over a marshy 
valley-watershed at Lenczyce to the Ner, a tributary of the 
Warta. Thence a slight ascent of twenty-three feet from 
Moschin on the Warta leads to the Obra. The southern 
branch of this bifurcating river obtains access to the Oder, 
which at Fiirstenberg, where begins the northward turn 
towards Frankfurt, lies only forty-three feet lower than 
the summit level of the canal to the Spree along the 
former valley of the Oder. On the other side of Berlin 
and Spandau, the marshy depression of the Havelland 
is a direct continuation to the Lower Havel of this old 
valley of the Oder. 

Yet a third and more southerly similar main valley 
of the Diluvial Period may be traced in the Mark of 
Brandenburg ; this is the valley of Baruth, whose eastern 
portion includes the Spreewald, with its innumerable 
watercourses, while its junction with the Elbe valley is 



102 CENTRAL EUROPE 

marked by other swamps. If we attempt to trace the 
valley farther eastward to the Oder at Glogau and to the 
Bartsch, we come upon bars of land which seem less 
compatible with the continued action of a great river 
than with possible occasional overflows from a lake 
dammed back in one of these more easterly valleys. 

Lateral connections between the three great valleys 
are formed by the Obra, the Oder, the Spree, the 
Havel, and other cross-valleys. The vegetation of the 
alder swamp proclaims the natural condition of this net- 
work of depressions which were important as boundaries 
of districts and formed serious barriers to communication. 
Many large portions of these valleys, previously neglected, 
were brought under cultivation only in the last century. 
The colonisation of the Oder swamp and of the lowland 
of the Warta and Netze valleys, the improvement of the 
natural waterways, and the opening of artificial ones 
were the memorable achievements of enlightened and 
energetic rulers. Wide areas of once barren country 
have been turned into productive, cultivated lands. In 
the valley of the Oder alone, between the two Ridges, 
dikes protect no less than 455 square miles, and in 
the Warta swamp, between Ciistrin and Schwerin, 140 
square miles. 

Before the geological formation of Russia was known, 
no scruple was felt in linking the Ridges of Germany, by 
T e Southern *^ e names of Uralo-Baltic and Uralo-Car- 
Ridge of Land pathian, with the farthest mountains of 
and the Russia. Neither of these ridges stands in 

Valleys at any sort of relation to the Ural Mountains, 

its Southern nor j ias ^g SO uthern of them the remotest 
connection with the Carpathians; it is not 
even in any way a continuation of the terraced country 
of Poland and Upper Silesia, from which its commence- 
ment is sharply divided by the marshy valley at Kempen, 
which runs from the Upper Weide to the Prosna. In 
height and unity the southern ridge is inferior to that 
of the Baltic. Its parts are separated by considerable 



NORTH GERMAN LOWLAND AND SEAS 103 

gaps — the sandy heights in the south-eastern corner of 
Posen, the fruit-bearing hills of Northern Silesia, the 
dry Flaming south of the Mark, and the solitary 
Luneburg Heath. The high undulating plateau of this 
last, between the Elbe and the Aller, contains a solitary 
Triassic outcrop, and is thus unlike the other hills, whose 
core is made of the Tertiary deposits carrying lignites. 
The limestone, gypsum, and salt springs of the Heath 
give some importance to the old town of Luneburg. 
Triassic sandstone also composes the rock of Heligo- 
land. Towards the south the inland portions of this 
ridge fall away into three very dissimilar valley districts. 
That of Silesia exhibits a fertile centre flanked right 
and left by sandy forests ; that of Saxony is entirely 
composed of good soils, while the south-east of Hanover 
comprises extensive bogs. With all these differences 
there are signs of former hydrographic unity among 
these three districts, between which the mountains jut 
out northwards. Between the Oder and the Elbe, 
striking links of connection are formed by the long 
valley of the Black Elster and the swampy hollows 
of Lower Silesia. Still more closely, however, is the 
zone of great valleys recalled by the appearance of 
the most westerly of the German alder swamps — the 
Dromling — from which the Ohre flows to the Elbe 
and the Aller to the Weser. Nor will the commercial 
importance of the Dromling long remain inferior to that 
of the more easterly valley-watersheds, for here the pro- 
jected midland canal will open a connection between the 
Weser and the Elbe. Thus navigation will soon be 
active in the hitherto silent valley of the Aller, as it has 
long been on the whole German course of the Elbe, and 
for some years past in the upper regions of the Oder as 
far as Kosel, the river port of Upper Silesia. 

The basin of the Weser, in common with the more 
easterly rivers, has a very one-sided development, the 
left-hand portion being restricted, while the right extends 
far, and includes a widely spread tributary which at 



104 CENTRAL EUROPE 

its mouth exerts a visible influence upon the direction 
of the main stream. The whole course of the Weser, 
The North however, from the Westphalian Gate to the 
Sea and its mouth, is not, like that of the other rivers, 
Lowlands. overlooked by the margin of a ridge, but 
lies open in a lowland, which exhibits neither division 
of its surface by lines of hills, nor any other of the 
distinctive marks of the East German plain. The 
enlivening abundance of variously shaped lakes has here 
disappeared from the country. The only pieces of water 
remaining on either side of the Weser, the Steinhuder 
Meer and the Dummer — extensively covered by marshy 
deposits from which great pieces occasionally break off 
and drift to and fro as floating islands — are entirely 
different from the East German diluvial lakes ; they are 
but portions of that great chain of bogs belonging to 
the North Sea district, which begins west of the Liineburg 
Heath, not far from the northern edge of the Weser moun- 
tains, and continuing in cheerless alternation with the dry 
and sandy flats of the "geest," occupies the interior of the 
North Sea lowland up to the Zuyder Zee. The nature 
of the country's surface is here not determined by its 
conformation, but almost entirely by the alternations of 
dry and damp stretches of land. 

The bogs are not confined to the hollows and de- 
pressions of the earth, and the majority of them are by no 
means standing waters filled up with vegetation ; most 
of them have arisen on shallow sandy soil with some 
impermeable formation below, which sometimes consists 
of clayey strata, and sometimes of a solid stratum of bog 
iron ore, formed of sand cemented together by hydrates 
of iron. Upon the soil of such underlying deposits 
have grown generation after generation of bog-forming 
plants that rise into a " high-moor " shaped like a shallow 
watch-glass. Insufficiency of nourishment limits the flora 
of the upper levels to those frugal ericaceae which live 
on dry sandy soils ; poverty of wood is common both 
to the bogs and to the dry " geest." Wide areas of North- 
western Germany thus come to have a monotonous, 



NORTH GERMAN LOWLAND AND SEAS 105 

melancholy character of landscape. The unbounded 
horizon, however, produces an overwhelming impression 
like that of the vastness of the sea. 

The largest bogs lie in Friesland, on both sides of the 
Ems. On its right the Leda cuts off the Aremberg Moor, 
which is 690 square miles in extent, from that of East 
Friesland, 274 square miles in extent ; while on the left, 
along the border of the Netherlands extends the Bourtanger 
Moor, with an area of 530 square miles. Although hardly 
a fourth part of these belongs to Holland, yet the whole 
proportion of that country occupied by bogs is reckoned 
at 1766 square miles, nearly 14 per cent of its whole 
area. These boggy portions, however, are almost entirely 
confined to the three north-eastern provinces. 

The moor-lands are in general sterile and thinly 
peopled. But the time has gone by in which their surface 
was utilised only as poor pasturage, while the efforts at 
cultivation were confined to a few spots which were burnt 
off, and among the ashes of which a little buckwheat grew, 
until the wretched soil was exhausted and left to lie idle. 
Excellent results have already been obtained from the more 
thorough methods of cultivation, which consist in remov- 
ing the peat and ploughing in the subsoil, which is some- 
times of extremely fertile alluvium. Along the canals, too, 
by which the bogs are drained, and of which the wide 
ramifications serve as highways for the conveyance of the 
peat and the intercourse of the settlers, have sprung up 
prosperous colonies in this once desolate country. In 
East Friesland, Papenburg is the most striking instance of 
this kind. Far more extensive, however, are the results 
obtained by such labours in the province of Groningen, 
where more than half the original bogs have been thus 
reclaimed and turned into plough-lands. 

On a still greater scale, however, is the struggle between 
man and ungracious nature as seen in the marsh districts 
nearer to the coast, where lowlands of fertile silt deposited 
by the rivers of the country, or in many cases by the 
invading waters of the sea, lie behind the zone of sand- 
dunes that formerly made a completer border than at 



106 CENTRAL EUROPE 

present along the shore of the North Sea. There was 
evidently a time when the whole coast from the north 
point of Jutland to Flanders was formed by a great barrier 
of dunes, the course of which, curved like a reversed letter 
■S, was regular to monotony, and only left open a few out- 
lets for the waters of the mainland. Of this great ancient 
belt of dunes, four divided fragments remain as portions 
of the main shore, and even these are not uninjured : — 

(i) The dunes of Jutland, from the Skaw to Blavands- 
hook. 

(2) The dunes of the peninsula of Eiderstedt. 

(3) The dunes of Holland, from Helder to the mouth 

of the Rhine. 

(4) The dunes of Flanders, on the other side of the 

mouths of the Scheldt. 

These, however, must not be considered as abiding 
and permanent formations. For not only the waters of 
the sea, but also the very sand itself takes part in the 
conflict of natural forces by which the coasts are shaped. 
The power of the wind, by which the dunes were accumu- 
lated, does not leave the sand at rest, but is constantly 
driving it onward over the ridge of the dune till whole hills 
are gradually displaced and begin to travel inland. A 
Roman edifice erected on the inner side of a dune has 
been known to be first covered up by sand-drifts and then, 
when the dune had passed over and beyond it, to re- 
appear behind, only to be swallowed up soon after by the 
waves. 

The whole border of the flat North Sea shore has cer- 
tainly retreated considerably before the invasions of the 
sea within the last two thousand years. Much greater, how- 
ever, have been the losses in the three great gaps which 
to-day divide the four banks of sand-dunes. When once 
the natural bulwark of the dunes was broken through, no 
efforts of the threatened inhabitants availed to protect the 
loose marsh country — which often rested on a foundation 
of still quaking bog — from the wild assaults of the waves. 
A natural sinking of the coast increased the danger, 



NORTH GERMAN LOWLAND AND SEAS 107 

especially for those areas which now lie lower than 
the level of high tides ; these, owing to the increasing 
difficulty of drainage, were threatened with inundation 
from the inland waters also. The combination of con- 
ditions so unfavourable led to catastrophes by which 
hundreds of square miles were swallowed up and many 
thousand human lives destroyed. The formation of the 
Zuyder Zee (1219-1287), of the Dollart (1277— 1287), and 
the Jade Bay (1218-1511) were only the worst of those 
disasters which made the Middle Ages so momentous in 
the history of the North Sea coast. It was not until 
the sixteenth century that the laborious but effective recla- 
mation of lost lands, by the embankment of " polders " 
regained from the sea, was deliberately and systematically 
undertaken. Holland, in particular, has pursued this 
course of peaceful conquest with brilliant success. 

On the west coast of Schleswig the belt of marshes is 
but narrow, and at some points so completely destroyed 
that the dry " geest " comes close to the sea. The 
luxuriant meadows of Ditmarsh, the carefully cultivated 
lowlands of Kehdingen, Hadeln, and Wursten between the 
Elbe and the Weser, and of Butjadingen between the 
Weser and the Jade, are only sheltered by dikes. On the 
shore of Holstein, in the last century, territory has even 
been conquered from the sea, and some " polders " wrested 
from the dominion of the shoals ; their broad expanse has 
now become the best bulwark of these coasts against the 
attack of enemies. The estuary of the Elbe is the part 
freest for navigation, but even here the shoals extend 
twenty miles into the sea from Cuxhaven. Half-way be- 
tween that port and Heligoland lies the first of the light- 
ships which point the mariner to navigable channels be- 
tween shifting shallows, while the two lighthouses on the 
island of Neuwerk offer fixed points for his guidance and 
lead him on to the light at the promontory of Cuxhaven. 
The deep clear waters that at this point lie close to the 
shores of Hadeln carry him in a sweep across the estuary 
to the mouth of the Kaiser Wilhelm Canal at Brunsbuttel 
on the coast of Holstein. Safe as is navigation in clear 



108 CENTRAL EUROPE 

weather amid this abundance of sea-marks, yet in a fog 
the services of a pilot thoroughly familiar with the locality 
are indispensable, and in war-time, when the lights were 
extinguished and the beacons removed, the approach of a 
foreign fleet to the mouth of the Elbe would be attended 
by very considerable hazard. 

This is the case in even higher degree in regard to 
the Weser and the Jade Bay. In spite of all sea-marks, 
it is highly inadvisable to sail into the mouth of the 
Weser without the guidance of a pilot, because of the 
alterations in the shallows constantly being made by the 
tides. On the Jade, too, the station of Wilhelmshaven 
is only kept safely accessible for ironclads of considerable 
draught by a continual dredging of the channel. 

The high tides beat with somewhat less violence upon 
the marshes of Friesland, for a girdle of islands, 150 
miles long, with firm dunes, persists from Wangeroog 
to Texel. Yet both this girdle and the mainland behind 
have, within historical times, undergone a considerable 
process of destruction, especially at the estuary of the 
Ems. The last centuries, however, have seen the greatest 
losses on the Dollart and Lauvers Zee in a considerable 
measure regained. 

It is now well ascertained that the great inland lake, 
distinctly divided from the sea, known to the Romans 
by the name of Flevo, was in the thirteenth century 
changed, by the destruction of the land barrier at its 
western shore, into a bay of the sea. The success 
attending the enterprise of Holland in draining large 
inland waters, such as the Haarlemer Meer (70 square 
miles in extent) and the Lake of Ij (23 square miles), 
has inspired the attempt to dry up the greater part 
of the Zuyder Zee. A mighty dike to the Island of 
Wieringen is to close the entrance of this inland sea. 
Four great " polders," west and east of the basin, are to be 
embanked step by step, and its area thus reduced from 
1400 to 560 square miles. The labour of this great work, 
the cost of which is reckoned at 189 million gulden, 
or nearly 16 millions sterling, will receive a rich return in 



NORTH GERMAN LOWLAND AND SEAS 109 

the reclamation of nearly 800 square miles of fertile 
cultivable land. 

In all undertakings for the protection of the shore 
against the sea, especial difficulties are presented by the 
problem of how to drain the marshes that lie below the 
average height of high tide. This is the case with one- 
fourth of the whole surface of the Netherlands. The 
task has only been achieved by the formation of an exactly 
planned network of trenches extending over the entire 
lowland, and sometimes crossing one another at different 
levels, supplemented by a series of pump-works, generally 
employing wind power, where the water is raised from 
the hollows into the canals above. 

Of the mighty volume of water belonging to the Rhine, 
the division of which begins soon after its entrance into 
Holland, only one-ninth is carried into the Zuyder Zee 
by the Yssel, and two-ninths to Rotterdam by the Lek, 
while six-ninths fall to the share of the Waal. Above 
Rotterdam the Lek receives a contribution from the 
Waal, and flows into the sea at the Hook of Holland 
under the name of the Maas, a name only to be ex- 
plained by the reception into this estuary of a former 
arm of the river of that name which rises in France. 
This once existing connection was, perhaps, served by 
"de oude Maas," the name given to a northern branch 
of the Waal which runs towards the estuary of the Lek 
below Dordrecht. Soon after taking in the true Maas 
(Meuse) the Waal assumes the name of Merwede, and 
under that designation flows into the southern estuary of 
the Hollandsh Deep. To the same estuary will the 
Meuse itself, whose borders have occasionally suffered 
owing to the backward flow of the flood-waters of the 
Waal, be guided by means of an independent channel 
on the south. The separation of the Rhine and 
the Meuse will then, for the first time, be made 
complete. 

If we merely considered on a map the two broad 
double mouths with which the delta of the Rhine 
opens to the west, we might easily be deceived into 



no CENTRAL EUROPE 

supposing that a superabundance of excellent water- 
ways, with fine cross-communications, lay open here to 
large ships. The breadth of all these channels, however, 
has been gained by the washing away of land, and they 
are all rendered shallow by the alluvial deposits from the 
rivers. 

This detracts from the superiority which might have 
been expected of the mouths of. the Rhine as compared 
with those of the Scheldt, close by on the south. 
Although only the Wester Scheldt is of value to naviga- 
tion, even of this the channel requires constant care 
and watchfulness in the interests of the active traffic that 
streams, not only towards the estuary and the harbour of 
Flushing, the port of Walchern, but also towards the river 
port of Antwerp, which lies upon tidal waters. The 
importance of this main centre of Belgian international 
traffic is threatened by no rival in its own country. 
Beyond the mouths of the Scheldt a close line of dunes 
begins again, offering an excellent bathing-place for land- 
rats, and a most undesirable field of labour for the seaman. 
For while, at a short distance in front of the high dunes 
of North Holland, stretch the uniform depths of the 
" Breite Vierzehn " (fourteen fathoms everywhere) ; in 
front of the coast of Flanders are the Flemish Banks, 
beginning even at the estuary of the Scheldt, and 
increasing towards the south-west both in number and in 
danger. The southern part of the Flemish coast belongs 
to France; but the natural southern boundary of the 
North Sea lowland is not reached until the Pas de 
Calais, where ends the North Sea itself. 

The opening of this strait has decisively altered the 
character and importance of the North Sea. It is an 
extensive but excessively shallow basin of water. "A 
sheet of writing-paper is thicker in proportion to its length 
and breadth than is the stratum of water covering the bed 
of the North Sea in comparison with its superficial area." 
The southern part, with which alone we are concerned, up 
to latitude 55J (from Alnmouth to Blaavanshook), has an 
area of 75,500 square miles, and an average depth of 



NORTH GERMAN LOWLAND AND SEAS in 

1 8 fathoms. Not only is there a wide stretch along the 
coasts which is shallower than this, but even in the midst 
of the North Sea rises the Dogger Bank, running north- 
eastward from the estuary of the Humber and very rich 
in fish. It exercises an important influence upon the 
course of the tide which comes into the North Sea be- 
tween the Shetlands and Orkneys, follows the coast of 
Scotland southward, and then runs to the west and south 
of the impeding Dogger Bank. It is at Texel that this tide 
meets the tide from the Channel, which controls the 
south-west of the sea and goes on to wash the shores of 
Germany in a mainly eastward course. Tides are the 
breath of fresh life to a sea. The tide runs far up, too, 
into the rivers of the country, swells their waters daily 
to a higher power, and, more effectually than any human 
labours can, opens up a broad belt of shoreland to 
navigation. Like a greeting from the ocean, the flood- 
tide rushes up to the wharves of Antwerp, Bremen, and 
Hamburg, inviting the inlands to take part in the traffic 
with far regions. 

Note on Authorities. — The best general view of the results of modern 
investigation is given by Wahnschaffe, Die Ursachen der Oberfldchen 
gestaltung des Norddeutschen Flachlandes^ 1 901. 

A more particular explanation of Fig. 16 is given by K. Keilhack 
{Jahrbuch der Kbniglichen Preussischen Geologiscke?i Landesanstalt for 
1878, and Verhandlungen der Gesellschaft fur Erdkunde zu Berlin, xxvi., 
1899). 

An exact account of the German seas is afforded by the marine hand- 
books of the German Admiralty. 

Rudolph Credner deals with Die Enstehung der Ostsee (Geographische 
Zeitschriff), i., 1895). 



CHAPTER VIII 

CLIMATE 

The whole continent of Europe enjoys climatic conditions 
which are in every respect moderate, and this advantage 
naturally reaches the highest development in its centre. 
Considerable differences in essential points are not, how- 
ever, excluded, and are of great assistance to various 
forms of cultivation. Indeed, Central Europe possesses, 
within the lines of demarcation set by the great 
mountain formations, some share in all the zones of 
climate belonging to the continent, the Arctic alone 
excepted. 

The differences of latitude, especially in the east be- 
tween Memel (55 43') and the mouth of the Bojana 
(41 ° 52'), are too great to fail of producing sharp con- 
trasts of character. The widest departure from the normal 
conditions of Central Europe is certainly exhibited by the 
hot cauldron of Herzegovina, where Mostar displays a July 
heat of 78. 6° Fahrenheit, and has to prepare itself every 
year for an average maximum heat of 106 Fahrenheit. 
Here, only thirty miles from the Adriatic, the African 
height of the summer temperature brings about such an 
intensification of annual variations as is only produced 
elsewhere by the cutting winter cold of the continental 
climate. In the interior of Germany, however, the varia- 
tions of temperature in higher and lower latitudes are so 
thoroughly compensated by the elevation of the country 
towards the south, that on the yearly average Munich is 
2.2 cooler than Schleswig. 



CLIMATE 
Let us glance at a few figures : — 



113 



Place. 


Latitude. 


Height. 


Mean Temperature. 


Difference. 














Annual. 


January. 


July. 






Degrees. 


Feet. 


Fahr. 


Fahr. 


Fahr. 


Fahr. 


Cambridge 


52.13 


39 


50.4 


38.7 


63.7 


25.0 


Utrecht 


52.5 


43 


49.8 


34-7 


65.I 


3°-4 


Hanover . 


52.22 


190 


48.4 


33-6 


64.2 


30.6 


Berlin 


52.30 


157 


47-5 


31.6 


65.1 


33-5 


Posen 


52.25 


213 


46.6 


29-3 


65.5 


36.2 


Warsaw 


52.13 


394 


45.1 


25-9 


65.8 


39-9 



The decrease of mean annual temperature towards 
the east arises from the considerable intensification and 
longer duration of the cold in winter, while the heat of 
summer does not diminish as we go eastward, but in- 
creases ; and the clearest mark of entry into the climate 
of the continent is the conspicuous increase in the yearly 
variation of temperature. 

The mild winters of the west are an advantage 
highly to be prized. It is true, the figures of the tem- 
perature in the shade are by no means decisive. The 
damp and stormy winter weather of the North Sea is far 
more trying to human powers of endurance than is a 
brilliant, still winter's day in Poland, with the snow 
crackling underfoot. Persons in delicate health, how- 
ever, do well to avoid the cutting winter airs of the east, 
and to take refuge in the mild nooks of the Rhine Valley 
at Wiesbaden or Baden-Baden, or, better still, on the 
delightful east shore of the Lake of Geneva, where some 
of the advantages may be enjoyed which are only to be 
found in full perfection on the other side of the Alps, along 
the Riviera, or at the sheltered spots of the Adriatic, at 
Abbazia, Lussin Piccolo, and Ragusa. The exclusion of 
harsh winds is combined in all these places with the charm 
of a more varied flora, enriched by species which cannot 
endure the harder winters of the continental climate. 

Unquestionably this mildness of climate has a very 
favourable effect upon the economic life of the west. 



ii4 CENTRAL EUROPE 

The North Sea, whose shores are edged with ice only 
in the very hardest winters, and even then mainly along 
the most enclosed inlets, has in this respect immeasurable 
advantages over the Baltic. The rivers of the mainland 
are far more liable to be closed by ice, not only because 
their waters are fresh, but also because the obstruction by 
ice of one single spot suffices to hinder the navigation of 
long lines of water. While England and France enjoy in 
normal years full freedom of internal traffic, in Germany 
we find the winter stoppages of navigation growing more 
and more frequent and lasting as we go farther east. 
Even on the Rhine ice appears regularly, and that not 
merely in the Netherlands, where sailing sledges have 
been made to fly over the glassy surface of the ice. At 
Cologne the river is reckoned to have ice upon it for an 
average period of twenty-one days. 

The more easterly rivers of Germany may be expected 
to be covered every year by firm ice ; but the times at 
which this sets in and the period for which it continues 
are so variable, and depend so much upon local conditions, 
that it is difficult to draw up comparative dates and 
figures, and still more difficult to reconcile the demands 
of commerce, which must have fixed times for the fulfil- 
ment of contracts, with the variable states of the water- 
ways. Their usefulness is destroyed, not only on the 
days when they are coated with ice, which on the Bohe- 
mian Elbe are estimated at twenty, at Magdeburg twenty- 
four, on the Silesian Oder thirty, at Warsaw sixty, and 
at Tilsit ninety-four, but for the whole period between 
the first appearance and the final disappearance of ice 
from the river. The average duration of this period on 
the Upper Elbe and Oder is some eighty days, in Pome- 
rania nearly ioo, and at Tilsit, according to the observa- 
tions of many years, 134. Sometimes dangers arise from 
the breaking up of the ice in the upper reaches of north- 
ward flowing rivers, while the lower reaches are still 
blocked. On the Vistula, in particular, very severe and 
dangerous floods often result from this cause. On the 
Danube, whose mouth is in the same latitude as that of 



CLIMATE 115 

the Po, and its Bulgarian reaches in the same latitude as 
the Arno, this possibility might naturally be supposed im- 
probable. But it is precisely in the lowest reaches that 
the ice is most apt to form, and the mean duration of it 
is set at thirty-seven days ; for forty years the Danube 
has only been entirely open in eight winters, and was 
•once blocked for ninety-four days. The mean tem- 
perature of the coldest month on the Sulina estuary 
(2 7 F.) corresponds with that of Trondhjem and Bodo 
(Lat. 67 ). 

The course of the isothermal lines for January runs 
S.S.E., while that for July crosses at a right angle and runs 
E.N.E., thus rising to higher latitudes in the interior of 
the continent. The same course is followed within cer- 
tain limits, imposed by the severe winter cold of the east 
and the consequent shortening of the period of vegetation, 
by the line of growth of many plants, and particularly of 
cultivated produce requiring a high point of summer heat 
to bring the fruits to maturity. The best instance is 
furnished by the grape. Towards the ocean it ripens as far 
as the south of Brittany (47|°), and thence north-eastward 
to Liege and Bonn (50.43 ) ; a few outposts on the 
Werra and Saale extend above 51° ; and it reaches its 
nearest to the Pole at Bomst on the Obra (52° io'). 
Up to this point the limit of the vine agrees very 
decidedly with the July isothermal line of 66° F., but 
now towards the interior of Eastern Europe it ceases 
to rise with this line, and being pushed back by the 
severity and the occasional length of the winter, turns 
suddenly towards the south and south-east. The extreme 
line of cultivation for maize approximately accompanies 
that of the vine from Brittany to the province of Posen, 
but is not compelled to retreat so far southward in the 
east, because the winter cold does not affect this purely 
summer crop. Thus the high summer temperature of 
the continental climate assures to its domain conditions 
particularly favourable to the ripening of summer crops. 
Especially high requirements in the matter of warmth 

are met by two continental countries, Hungary and 
9 



n6 CENTRAL EUROPE 

Roumania, in which the mean day temperature of a hot 
season lasting two or three months is 68° F. Only- 
one district occupies a worse position in regard to the 
pursuit and the success of agriculture than might be 
expected from its geographical latitude. This is the 
district on the shores of the Baltic, where a most un- 
genial spring delays considerably the awakening of 
vegetation. 

In general, however, the climatic influence of the ocean 
prevails in Central Europe, for westerly winds are the 
most numerous and the most powerful, since the region 
lies south of the lines along which most of the barometric 
depressions pursue their north-eastern or eastern course. 

Mountain walls form a protection against strong 
winds, but only for plains that are not very extensive. 
The lowland of the Upper Rhine and the basin of Bohemia 
feel the benefit of their embracing mountains. The flat 
plains of Hungary, however, are so large as to become a 
suitable arena for the gambols of very whirlwinds, which 
sport so wildly with the snow of winter and the dust of 
summer, as to offer a foretaste of the storms of the Pontic 
steppes. The east of Roumania, indeed, actually falls 
under the sway of these storms. The marked prevalence 
of north-east winds at Sulina and Bucharest occurs chiefly 
in the summer, and is then connected with the system of 
winds of the Mediterranean basin ; the tail of the north- 
east trade wind, which sets the air above it moving towards 
the hot African deserts, extends beyond the 45th parallel 
of latitude. But even in winter north-east winds frequently 
occur here as parts of a cyclone circling round a baro- 
metric minimum over the Black Sea. A similar winter 
development of an area of low atmospheric pressure over 
the Adriatic, amid colder surrounding countries, occasions 
the frequent north-east winds of lstria and Dalmatia. 
Their much dreaded violence, however, is caused by the 
closed mountain walls of the Karst, which so delay the 
exchange of air between the sea and the interior, that the 
difference in the temperature and density becomes very 
great, and the adjustment only occurs with storm and 



CLIMATE 117 

violence. The streets of Trieste are swept by the Bora 
with gusts of such violence, that in open places only 
stretched ropes can keep the pedestrians from being blown 
down. This wind is felt to be cuttingly cold, yet in its 
hasty descent from the mountains it has been somewhat 
warmed, and is own brother to the " Fohn " (violent south 
wind) of the Alps. The latter is always related to the 
general distribution of the atmosphere throughout Central 
Europe, and rages suddenly, dry and warm, through the 
northern valleys of the Alps, at times when the air is 
drawn up from them and as it were pumped out by a 
space of more rarefied air — a passing depression — to the 
north. The Alps, the Karst, and the Southern Carpathians 
together often form a mighty barrier dividing two different 
tracts of weather. If they divide a region of high atmos- 
pheric pressure from a depression, the atmosphere will 
be set in motion in a slanting course over the ridge and 
will descend rapidly to the area of less density. But if 
a tract of high atmospheric pressure lies above their 
ridges, dividing two regions in which cyclones move and 
prevail, then there will be calm in the valleys among the 
mountains, accompanied by fine weather, but often in 
winter-time also by very severe cold. 

The important influence of the superficial confor- 
mation of the land is even more immediately perceptible 
in regard to the distribution of moisture. Every rain- 
chart is closely related to a relief-map. The mountains 
compel currents of air to rise, to be chilled, and to 
condense their vapour, but they obtain much moisture 
only if the air has previously collected much in 
the places of its origin. Thus the ocean remains, 
under all circumstances, the first source of rain, and 
the fact that the prevalent winds are those blowing off 
it is of importance to Central Europe. If we could 
ascend in a balloon to a height from which the whole 
of Central Europe would be surveyed at one glance, the 
veils of mist spreading over it and thickening towards 
the north-west would emphatically show us how important 
is the part played by the ocean as parent of our streams 



u8 



CENTRAL EUROPE 




a, 
o 
1-1 



U 






CLIMATE 



119 




w 



e4 



120 CENTRAL EUROPE 

and rivers. Exclusive of mountain tops, we should see 
but one district — on the North Sea — where about 75 per 
cent, of the sky area appeared to be overcast. The 
clearest skies in all Central Europe, with only 40 per cent, 
of cloud, would lie over the southern islands of Dalmatia, 
the coastal strip of Ragusa, and some considerable 
stretches of the Hungarian plain. To these sunny areas 
seem to succeed next certain Alpine valleys, but the 
apparent freedom of these from cloud is mainly due to 
the enclosing mountains, which conceal from the spec- 
tator the lower, more cloudy sky towards the horizon. 
Modern observers have taken the more advantageous 
course of measuring not the total area of sky overcast 
with cloud, but the more important duration of sunshine. 
Among the stations of Central Europe where such observa- 
tions are made, the widest difference is between Hamburg 
with 1236 hours of sunshine in the year, and Pola with 
2546 (three or four hours, and seven hours per diem). 

The dull cloudiness of the North Sea, however, 
and the clear brilliance of the Adriatic heaven permit 
no conclusions as to the amount of rainfall, for the 
very heaviest rain-storms of the continent occur pre- 
cisely on the north-east shore of the Adriatic, which rises 
precipitously from a warm sea to rugged heights. This 
fact was noted only a decade ago, when observatories were 
placed upon the heights, whose abrupt walls — like those 
of an Alpine lake — stand around the Bocche di Cattaro. 
The capital of Montenegro, Cettinje, was found to have 
an annual rainfall of 115 inches, and the Dalmatian 
village of Tserkvitse (3445 feet high) of 199. That this 
almost tropical effusion of rain is not solely due to the 
local influence of a nook amid high mountains is shown 
by observations of the country behind the Quarnero, taken 
from Hermsburg on the Schneeberg, in Carniola. There, 
too, at a height of 3272 feet, 125 inches of rain were 
measured, while in the Alps only a few stations show a 
fall of more than 80, and the rainiest spots of the Central 
German mountains attain only 40 to 60 inches. All these 
figures stand far higher than those which apply to low- 



CLIMATE 121 

lying areas ; these diminish south-eastwards from about 
27 inches in the North Sea region to 17 on the 
estuary of the Danube. Local minima of rainfall occur 
in the interior of enclosed basins surrounded by mountains, 
such as the Valais, the Upper Rhine Valley, the heart of 
Bohemia, the south of Moravia, and Hungary ; also under 
the lee of some single mountain block — the plains of 
Magdeburg, behind the Hartz Mountains, for instance. 

The coast of the Adriatic is the only region belonging 
to the zone of summers with little rain, in which many 
sorts of cultivation can only be carried on in the hot 
season by means of artificial irrigation. All the other 
countries of Central Europe have rains at all seasons, and 
it is precisely in the summer that most of them have their 
highest rainfall, this maximum being more distinctly marked 
in the interior than in the neighbourhood of the sea. Con- 
tinual rains sometimes destroy the finest hopes of harvest. 
Only the south-east, the lowlands of the Danube in Hun- 
gary and Roumania, are free from this peril, and they 
are exposed to the contrary danger of drought. Often, 
in July and August, when clouds gather that promise 
rain, they pass off in the dry glowing air that lies over 
these wide plains, mocking the thirsty wanderer with the 
illusions of the Fata Morgana. The special climatic influ- 
ence of the plains so weakens the rainfall of the hottest 
summer-time in the Danubian region that the maximum is 
reached as early as June, and the two succeeding months 
are marked by no further increase ; on the contrary, the 
showers grow fewer, and only increase to a second maxi- 
mum in September and October. 

While the heated surface of the earth here causes a 
deviation from the normal distribution of rain in Central 
Europe, a precisely contrary effect is produced in autumn 
along the shores of the ocean. The quicker cooling of 
the mainland in the period succeeding the autumnal 
equinoxes encourages the vapours brought by mild winds 
from the warmer sea to condense, and so cause the 
autumn maximum of rainfall that occurs in the parts of 
Europe adjoining the ocean. This autumnal maximum 



122 CENTRAL EUROPE 

is most completely marked in Western France and the 
British Islands. But the first stages of its development 
begin on the German shores of the North Sea and in the 
Netherlands. 

A special position in regard to the periodic distribu- 
tion of rainfall is occupied by the mountains. In summer, 
indeed, they are often washed by mighty downpourings, 
which sometimes rise to such violence that the rivers 
become dangerously swollen, even far out in the plain- 
But on the whole, the considerable quantities of rain 
received by the mountains show no such marked concen- 
tration of the maximum into the summer as is the case in 
the plains, but rather an inclination towards more regu- 
larity of distribution, and, in particular, towards a richer 
abundance in winter. The snow never fails to appear, 
turning the ground of the forest into a highway where 
the sledges move freely and carry wood either to the 
great smooth roadway or to the rivers. Snow-fields, 
too, saturate the earth with moisture and feed sources 
and brooks. The rivers of Alpine districts enjoy their 
fullest supply from the glaciers in the height of summer, 
at the very time- when increased evaporation and the 
consumption of water by vegetation leave other rivers 
poor and weak. Fed by the melting waters of garnered 
snow and ice, they swell to fullest abundance, and offer 
an increased power for the service of labour and traffic. 

One point at which this advantage of the Alpine rivers 
is particularly noticeable is at the junction of the Iller at 
Ulm. The clear dark-coloured Danube emerges in quiet 
and modest cheerfulness from the Jura ; only after its 
union with the Iller from the Alps does it become a river.. 
The latter brings, in summer especially, the far stronger 
volume of water, yet the basin from which it gathers 
its store is not half so large as that of the Upper 
Danube. As the Danube is far surpassed in relative 
volume by the Alpine rivers, so in turn it far surpasses 
the Elbe. Against the 950 cubic yards carried past 
Passau in a second by the Danube, the Elbe at the point 
where it comes out of Bohemia, though it has behind it 



CLIMATE 123, 

a somewhat larger basin, can set only 390. The mighty- 
volume of water carried by the Rhone from the Lake of 
Geneva (330 cubic yards per second) offers in Switzer- 
land no other waterway than the local one of the lake's 
surface. More important are the masses of water carried 
by the Rhine into the Netherlands (3270 cubic yards per 
second) and by the Danube into the Black Sea (10,470 
cubic yards). These quantities bear impressive witness to 
what the atmosphere can do in despite of the powers of 
the earth. Lands divided by rising barriers of mountain 
are linked together in the bonds of intimate common life 
by the ribbons of the green Rhine and the blue Danube. 

Note on Authorities. — A classical account of the climate of Central 
Europe is furnished by Vols. I. and III. of J. Hann's Handbuch der 
Klimatologie. 

The climatic maps in Berghaus's Physical Atlas, III., 1887, are by 
the same author. 

The map of average clouding (Fig. 20) is taken from Elfert (Peter- 
mann's Mitteihmgen, 1890) ; that representing the rainfall (Fig. 21) has. 
been compiled from various sources (Hann, Supan, Angot). 

The rivers of Germany are described in monumental official mono- 
graphs. 



CHAPTER IX 

THE PEOPLES 

We must rest contented with twenty centuries as the 
period during which the movements of population in 
Central Europe can be known with certainty. The 
obscurity of remoter days is illuminated only by archae- 
ological discoveries that go back more and more faintly to 
the epoch — perhaps two hundred centuries ago — in which 
the ice of Scandinavia and the Alps, making its last great 
advance, narrowed the domain in which the earliest trace- 
able inhabitants of Central Europe were struggling, aided 
by their instruments of stone and bone, to maintain a 
scanty existence. 

The first wave of population whose westward course 
has left traces enabling us to follow it with approximate 
certainty was Celtic. It has left behind it in the district 
of the Danube and in South and West Germany an un- 
mistakable trail of geographical names. The rivers Danu- 
vius and Rhenus and most of their tributaries bear names 
of Celtic origin ; and the words of Tacitus are still appli- 
cable to the home of the great race of the Boji : "The 
name Boihemum (home of the Boji, Bohemia) still con- 
tinues to exist and to denote the former history of the 
country although its inhabitants have changed." This 
name of the Boji was indeed so persistent that it clung 
even to the latest of the Germanic races that came out of 
this district : the Bajuvari (Bavarians). The Elbe (Albis) 
and the Oder (Viaduas), on the other hand, and the Havel 
(Habula) and the Spree, which lie between them, have 
German names ; they mark the earliest settlements from 
which the Germani gradually spread over the whole of 
Central Europe. Previous even to the year 180 B.C. the 



THE PEOPLES 125 

Bastarni — the first of the Germani who obtained access to 
the Mediterranean — had appeared at the mouth of the 
Danube ; and before that century closed Cimbri and 
Teutons were pressing down from the shores of the North 
Sea and crossing the Pyrenees and the Alps. From 
the time of their first steps towards the subjugation of 
Gaul, the Romans were always making endeavours to pen 




Fig. 22. — Celtic River Names in Germany. 

in the advancing Germani behind the Rhine. In the time 
of Tacitus, the Rhine, the Danube, and the Vistula were 
reckoned as the approximate boundaries of the Germani, 
The future inheritors, however, of their borderlands were 
already established on their east : the Aestii in the amber- 
land and the parts east of it ; and the Venedae, the fore- 
most of the Slavonic races, to the south of them, east of 
the Vistula. 



126 



CENTRAL EUROPE 



The Roman Empire was successful for more than 
three centuries in opposing a firm barrier to the 
advance of the Germanic tribes, although the position 
of it did not always remain quite the same. When 
once the Romans had carried their conquest across the 
Alps, which had so long been regarded as a barrier, 
the extreme length of the Empire's northern border 
was felt to be a burden. Strong rulers aimed to 
shorten the boundary line by carrying it forward to 
the Elbe and to the outer edge of the mountains of 




ffaman Sm/oire cttfiiy Temporary Conquest^ ^^^j /Pey/orjj crosjet/ by Roman Armies 

Fig. 23. — Advance of the Romans into Central Europe. 



Central Europe. Finally, in the long-run, the Romans 
continued to hold only the rivers Rhine and Danube, and 
also, for a considerable period, the angle of country 
lying between their upper reaches. There the most 
smiling districts of Germany invited the Romans, and the 
peoples protected by them, to make permanent settle- 
ments. The course of the Main, running northward at 
the western end of the Spessart, was the natural support 
of the frontier line, which, enclosing the Wetterau and 
the Rheingau, passed over the heights of the Taunus 
and the western edge of the Westerwald, and ended on 
the border of the provinces of Upper and Lower 



THE PEOPLES 127 

Germania. In the other direction, it continued south- 
ward for fifty miles in a line so absolutely straight as to 
amaze modern surveyors, to Lorch near the Hohen- 
staufen. At this point the frontiers of Upper Ger- 
mania and Rhaetia met in a right angle that seemed like 
a repetition of the bend of the Rhine at Basle, and the 
frontier of Rhaetia ran north-eastward in front of the 
northern edge of the Swabian Jura through the deep 
valley of the Ries, the name of which recalls that it once 



Boundary Wall 
Camps 




Fig. 24. — The Roman Limes of Germania and Raetia. 

belonged to Rhaetia, then across the tableland of the 
Franconian Jura, intersected by the Altmuhl, and so 
nearly to Kelheim on the Danube. This frontier (337 
miles long) was not a military position ; but it was the real 
boundary sharply marked, and its protection was facilitated 
by the construction of a wall and ditch, which could be 
adequately guarded by small forces in each of the camps 
and towers that were established at intervals of some 
ten miles. Vespasian fixed this line of border, which 
was established and maintained by his successors until 
the year 253. It has been thoroughly elucidated by 



T28 CENTRAL EUROPE 

modern investigations, while the so-called Wall of Trajan, 
on the isthmus of the Dobruja, remains to be examined in 
the future. 

The boundaries of the Roman Empire in Central 
Europe are of importance in the history of its civi- 
lisation, for the ineffaceable impress of Roman civilisa- 
tion and Roman institutions was not bound up with 
the continuance of Roman nationality. In regard to 
Central Europe, indeed, the observer is tempted to 
maintain the direct contrary. Even when we leave the 
regions of great Romanic populations in Western and 
Southern Europe, which still extend over considerable 
areas in Belgium, Lorraine, West Switzerland, Ticino, and 
South Tyrol, we find the Romance idiom persisting in 
connection with the retired life of mountain districts that 
lie aside from the great currents of population and 
social life. This is plainly perceptible in the Romansh 
valleys of the Grisons, South Tyrol, and Friuli. In the 
case of the Roumanians, too, the home in which they 
have maintained their tongue throughout a thousand 
and a half-thousand of stormy years, was not the fertile 
expanse of plains, lying in a significant position inter- 
nationally, wherein they have now grown up to be a great 
nation and a highly important state. The Roumanians 
regard Transylvania, the centre of the modern expansion, 
as their original home ; the Magyars, on the other hand, 
maintain that they themselves were the earlier possessors 
of Transylvania. In the comparative absence of historical 
records, the point can only be decided by a thorough 
examination of the language, and impartial philologists 
conclude from slight indications that the Roumanian 
tongue grew up in the Balkan countries. The Romanised 
population of those countries, strengthened by the im- 
migration of Roman provincial subjects who crossed to 
the right bank of the Danube when Dacia (Transylvania) 
was evacuated, would appear not to have been completely 
destroyed by the foreign elements pouring in upon it. 
The Valachs of the Pindus and of some communes of Istria 
on Monte Maggiore (numbering about 2500 persons) and 



THE PEOPLES 129 

the Valachs of Eastern Moravia — who, however, have long 
since practically become Slavonic — form the outlying 
points that mark those sporadic settlements of the Rou- 
manian race by which most of the Balkan Peninsula 
and the whole curve of the Carpathians were occupied. 
The period at which the Roumanians increased on the 
north of the Danube and in the Carpathians is uncertain, 
but assuredly they did not come thither at so late a date 
as the Magyars would like to believe. As early as 1164 
they were established near to the frontier of Galicia, 
and during the succeeding centuries took a considerable 
share in colonising that land. At the present day 
they occupy a compact country reaching northward 
from the Lower Danube and the Dniester as far as the 
Bukovina and the Marmarosh, and westward beyond the 
edge of the Transylvanian mountain district towards 
Grosswardein and Temeshvar. 

The movements of population out of which this race 
has now emerged again disturbed the racial boundaries 
in the north of Central Europe, and with lasting results. 
In the course of the great migration, Germanic tribes 
were scattered over all the countries of Europe, and 
even over the opposite shores of the Mediterranean. 
While the wandering peoples, whose military fame had 
filled the world, became gradually Romanised in foreign 
lands, the mother country had grown smaller and smaller. 
When the conquests of the Franks, which had already 
extended to the ocean, were turned against their blood 
relations on the east, and when, one after another, the 
Alemanni, Thuringians, Bajuvars, and Saxons had found 
themselves obliged to submit to their superior might, the 
invaders came upon Slavonic peoples in the very midst of 
ancient Germania, on the Upper Main and the Saale. 
These peoples had possessed themselves of the whole 
coast of the Baltic from the mouth of the Vistula to the 
peninsula of Wagrien and the inlet of Kiel, where they 
were immediate neighbours of the Danes. When we 
reflect that the modern development of French nationality 
was already beginning to take shape in the west of 



130 



CENTRAL EUROPE 



" Francia," and that purely German territory did not every- 
where touch the western border of the Rhine basin, we 
perceive that the Germany of that period, in comparison 
with ancient Germany, had not only been pushed towards 
the south-west, but had also, notwithstanding the addition 
of the Alpine foreland and a part of the Alps, suffered 
considerable diminution ; it comprised indeed only about 
three-fifths of its former extent. The recovery of the 
lands lost on the east begins with Charlemagne, and for 
a long time proceeds but slowly. Not until the twelfth 
century did the tide of conquest quicken ; then Mecklen- 
burg became German, and the Mark of Brandenburg and 
the Mark of Meissen rose into prosperity. The most im- 
portant acquisitions of the thirteenth century were Prussia, 
conquered by the Teutonic Order, and Silesia, peacefully 
occupied by German peasants and towns under German 
law. At the same time German colonisation in Bohemia 
proceeded through the wide frontier forests, which had 
not up to that time been touched, while in Southern 
Moravia German settlers began to make clearances in the 
great woodlands which had till then formed the northern 
boundary of the Ostmark, the Eastern Mark or German 
border country along the Danube. After the suppression 
of the Hungarian invasions, this Mark had from the 
eleventh to the thirteenth century been making progress 
under strong rulers. Within the Eastern Alps, too, the 
Bavarian tribes had made a successful advance, driving 
back the Slavs. These at one time had come up to the 
sources of the Drave and into the valleys of the Glockner 
and Venediger groups, but they now retired into the 
main basin of Carinthia. Not only the whole district of 
the Drave, but also that of the Mur and Miirz up to the 
Semmering, is full of Slavonic place-names which testify 
to the size of the field here filled by German colonising 
activity. 

What, it may be asked, were the initiating forces that 
led to this vast movement of the Germans towards the 
east ? Was this movement due to a deliberate far-seeing 
policy of the German Emperors ? By no means. The 




Tim Umtnrgk Geog'rapldcal Lifi1±tn: 



- ETHNOGRAPHICAL 




X G B artti.ol.omew. 



THE PEOPLES 131 

German advance was often quickened by the fact that it 
coincided with the advance of Christendom. Many in- 
vasions assumed the character of crusades, and even more 
powerful was the persevering support of ecclesiastical 
organisation, and the progress of German bishoprics and 
German convents which brought with them conversion, 
intellectual leading, and social improvement. The per- 
manent results, however, of all this activity were depen- 
dent even more upon the important fact that, while the 
East was in every respect backward, the German race was 
at that time peculiarly fitted to send thither not merely 
valuable elements of a superior civilisation, but also many 
sturdy colonists who would carry on active progress. The 
Germans had multiplied very rapidly, and in every branch 
of industry were incontestably superior, excelling in 
agriculture as well as in manufacture and mining, in 
commerce as well as in seamanship. The Slavonic rulers 
saw with pleasure great tracts of worthless virgin forest 
turned into productive land around German villages, 
while little towns with free German institutions, arose 
among them as centres of trade and communication. 
They felt their own power increased by the addition of 
actively producing and taxable subjects, and were eager to 
lead German settlers into those parts of their countries 
which were still but imperfectly opened up. 

The thirteenth century saw German colonies estab- 
lished at the foot of the Tatra, in the metalliferous 
mountains of Upper Hungary and in Transylvania. 
The German Hanseatic League, too, following the lead 
of Liibeck, put forth mercantile colonies, which held 
unlimited control of the Baltic trade, and had a con- 
siderable share in the traffic of the North Sea. The 
great work achieved during this period was the re- 
moval of the sharp boundary-line that had previously 
divided the German race from its neighbours on the 
east, and the formation throughout and around the 
territories of these neighbours of islands of German 
civilisation. 

This advance of the Germans continued until nearly 



i 3 2 CENTRAL EUROPE 

the middle of the fourteenth century. Then in Scandi- 
navian countries, as well as in Lithuania, Poland, Bohemia, 
and Hungary, a general spirit of resistance awoke among 
the various peoples who, under German teaching, had 
grown up to a fuller self-conscious life and a more ambi- 
tious sense of nationality. The decline of the German 
Empire deprived all the threatened outposts, the Hanse- 
atic League as well as the Teutonic Order, of the support 
so essential to them in their hour of greatest need. The 
weakness of the broken Empire allowed every shock to 
existing arrangements to develop into a permanent loss of 
German possessions. The advent of the Reformation, too, 
brought with it dangers to the existing boundaries of the 
nation. Nearly everywhere it set the Catholic clergy 
fighting against the Germans on behalf of alien tongues, 
and customs. In these circumstances the past five cen- 
turies have seen many a district once subjugated to civilisa- 
tion by German industry overcome and destroyed by the 
rising of foreign races. Only here and there has the wise 
activity of some far-seeing ruler in the last century or so 
called upon the colonising capacity of the Germans and 
set them to recover tracts of land which, owing to pro- 
longed neglect or barbarous devastation, had become 
depopulated. The district of Southern Hungary, between 
the Danube and the mountains of Transylvania, that was 
torn from the Turks in 171 8, and was colonised by a 
strong contingent from Swabia, rose in the course of the 
eighteenth century to a degree of prosperity which it had 
never reached before. 

In addition to external circumstances which combined 
to impede the persistence of the German tongue in regions 
which it had once conquered, there was a marked ten- 
dency in the tongue itself towards divergencies of develop- 
ment, and this also seriously weakened its position. A 
High German and a Low German group of dialects are 
distinguishable. While the members of the former group 
remained closely related, and while the tendency to an 
independent development of the Allemannic dialect in 
Switzerland was overcome when there was yet time by 



THE PEOPLES 133 

the influence of the High German written language, the 
Low German dialects increased so much in diversity that 
before the High German had attained to a fully fixed 
form they had developed into practically separate lan- 
guages. A little to the east of the Lower Rhine and the 
Issel lies the boundary between the Lower Franconian and 
Lower Saxon or Platt-Deutsch dialects. Two related 
tongues branched off very early from the Lower Saxon — ■ 
the Anglo-Saxon, which on English soil became the 
groundwork of the English language, and the Frisian. 
The isolation in which the Frisians have dwelt from the 
earliest times of German history, along the shores and 
islands of the North Sea and beyond the great marshlands, 
was especially favourable to an independent develop- 
ment of language. The continuance of it, however, was 
seriously threatened by the inroads of the sea. Only 
scattered areas of the old Frisian language remain, 
and these will gradually disappear. To the west of the 
Zuyder Zee Frisian has already died out ; but to the east 
West Friesland remains the firmest centre of Frisian- 
speaking population. In East Friesland and in the Sater- 
land of Oldenburg hardly 2500 persons now understand 
the tongue of their fathers, but the North Frisian dialect, 
still spoken by 2000 Heligolanders and by nearly 18,000 
inhabitants of the western islands and shores of Schleswig- 
Holstein, retains more vitality. 

Frisian and Lower Saxon have had a marked influence 
upon the development of the Dutch language, the main 
groundwork of which was the Lower Franconian. The 
beginnings of its growth into an independent written 
language date back to the thirteenth century, but its 
complete separation and deliberate employment were not 
secured until after the rising of the Netherlands against 
the power of Spain. The Flemish tongue, spoken by a 
majority of the inhabitants of the kingdom of Belgium, 
has gradually won equal rights with French, and the 
Flemish speech is now once again approximating more 
and more closely to the written Dutch language, with 
which, however, it does not yet altogether coincide. 



i 3 4 CENTRAL EUROPE 

While in Holland and Flanders the sense of kindred 
with the West Germans persists, the Danes of North 
Schleswig- — the only place where the soil of the German 
Empire is occupied by an outpost of Scandinavian blood 
— stand out in sharp contradistinction to the Lower 
Saxons. They cannot reconcile themselves to having 
ceased to rule the duchies. But they are scarcely more 
numerous than the Lithuanians who continue to subsist 
in East Prussia, mainly in the northern point of the 
country beyond the marshes and woods on the right 
bank of the Pregel. Since the extinction, in the seven- 
teenth century, of the language spoken by the original 
Prussians, these people form the only living branch in 
Central Europe of the Aestii, who once ruled the country 
up to the Vistula. 

Even in Roman times the banks of this river were 
attained by the foremost tribes of the great Slavonic race. 
The wall of the Carpathians — that invaluable bulwark 
of Western Europe — divided the Slavonic hordes which 
in the sixth century poured down upon Central Europe 
into two great streams. The more northerly spread 
across the whole breadth of the North German lowland 
and sent detachments of Slavonic population through 
the valley openings of the Western Carpathians and 
through the Moravian Gap into Moravia and Bohemia, 
while the southerly — following the Avars — pushed across 
Southern Hungary into the Eastern Alps, occupying their 
valleys and ramifications. 

In the middle of the seventh century it appeared as 
though the Slavs of the Alps and those of Bohemia would 
join hands, but the valley of the Danube offered an easy 
roadway for the movement of the Bavarians and their 
eastern neighbours, and it proved impossible for a 
permanent Slavonic power to bar this highway. The 
fates of the Western and the Southern Slavs remained 
divided. 

The Slavs of the North German plain have mainly 
become Germanised. The great race of the Wends, who 
ruled the land between the Elbe and the Oder, has left 



THE PEOPLES 135 

but a fast-disappearing remnant of its tongue along the 
Spree between Bautzen and Kottbus. A much larger 
district remains in West Prussia, cut off from the great 
Polish-speaking districts by the almost entirely German 
lowlands of the Vistula, Brahe, and Netze. The early 
conversion of this little country to Christianity preserved 
it from the fate prepared by the German Order for the 
heathen Prussians. Thus preserved, the Slavonic nation- 
ality gained strength by being long connected with the 
kingdom of Poland, and now continues undiminished be- 
cause German influence is slight in this country of little 
traffic and only small towns. 

Here in West Prussia, as in the continuous district of 
kindred speech, which includes the south of East Prussia 
(Masuria), the Kulmerland, and the greater part of the 
provinces of Posen and Upper Silesia, the German move- 
ment is arrested. At many points, indeed, a Polish 
advance has been distinctly perceptible during the last 
twenty or thirty years, and will hardly be stopped by 
the endeavours of the Government to promote further 
German colonisation. The power of resistance belonging 
to the Slavonic element of the Prussian kingdom is 
everywhere strengthened by the Catholic clergy, except in 
Masuria, where there are Protestant Poles. The equali- 
sation of Catholics and Protestants, of Poles and Germans, 
was not indeed quite just, but it was simple and effectual. 
Every step that favoured the extension of the German 
language was regarded with distrust as an attack upon 
religion. That difficulty, however, has always existed. 
Others have arisen more recently in districts impoverished 
and decayed under Polish rule from the care for educa- 
tion and for social progress which was the duty of the 
Government. Only under the Prussian supremacy has 
a Polish middle class been called into existence ; now 
there are not only artisans and shopkeepers, but doctors, 
lawyers, and journalists, and these men are making the little 
towns, the old strongholds of Teutonism, into centres 
of Polish propaganda. The more active this becomes, 
the less is the inclination of Germans to remain in this 



136 CENTRAL EUROPE 

district, while the Poles are growing rapidly. This 
growth of Slavonic population is further increased by 
immigration from the east. Every spring brings whole 
trainloads of labourers, " Sachsenganger," from the Polish 
parts of Posen and Silesia, and also from the adjoining 
Russian provinces, into the " beetroot country," that is 
to say, the district of the middle Elbe. Here they help 
to get in the harvest of the fertile land for the great 
sugar industry, receiving in return a wage far in excess 
of what they could earn at home, and many remain 
permanently. Nor is the current of Polish immigration 
to the great industrial centres of the empire smaller. 
There are places on the Westphalian coalfields where 
the proportion of Polish immigrants is as high as 15 
per cent, of the total population. Here, in the densely 
populated area of an industrial district, are to be found 
some 100,000 Poles. The gaps left in the artisan class 
of the eastern provinces by such emigration are inevit- 
ably filled by Polish workmen called in from Russia or 
Galicia. 

Economic conditions have thus brought about a 
modern immigration of races which the Imperial Govern- 
ment, although powerless to prevent, naturally enough be- 
holds with no satisfaction. Similarly in many towns of 
Bohemia that were formerly purely German a group of 
Czech workmen will now be found, forming a minority 
that is rapidly increasing and full of demands. In 
Vienna, where there are more than 160,000 Czechs, they 
have attained to preponderance in many trades. In the in- 
dustrial centres of Saxony, too, they are increasing. The 
growing power of the Slavs in Bohemia is, however, 
mainly due to the fanatical energy of national spirit which 
during the last fifty years has so penetrated the whole 
people as to make every nerve of their physical power 
and every pulse of their intellectual life subservient to the 
advancement of the nation's strength and glory, neither 
the rights of others nor established tradition being allowed 
to counterbalance. A recollection of the freedom with 
which they have been permitted to pursue their ends 



THE PEOPLES 137 

under a German dynasty and in a state comprising far 
more Germans than Czechs, and of the great results which 
they have been permitted to attain, may perhaps keep 
the pan-Slavist inclinations of the Czechs within bounds. 
How different would have been their fate if, instead of 
being surrounded by Germans, they had ever had the 
great Slavonic empire even for a neighbour ! 

Compare the fate of the Poles. The district occupied 
by their language lies in a well-defined square between 
the lakes of the East Prussian hill-country and the ridge 
of # the Carpathians, the angles being nearly marked by 
Birnbaum (province of Posen), Suwalki (Lithuania), the 
Jablunka Pass, and Przemysl. Lemberg (Lwow), the 
capital of Galicia, lies amid a Ruthenian district, but 
within one of those islands of language the frequent 
occurrence of which along the Bug marks that river as 
an earlier and now lost eastern boundary of the Polish 
nation. The upper and middle districts of the Warta and 
Vistula are thus occupied almost completely by the 
Polish nationality. Any attempt to establish a il national " 
division of the continent would have to take account of 
Poland, which owes both her greatness and her misfor- 
tunes to her border position between Eastern and Central 
Europe. It is a fact of importance in the history of the 
world that this country belongs by religion to the West 
and not to the East, and that its whole past was dominated 
by the Roman and not by the Byzantine civilisation. 
Even at the present day the Poles form a nation which 
may base hopes of a better future, not only upon their 
history and upon powers that have been .preserved, and 
perhaps matured in hard trials, but also upon their 
numbers. Half of them are held down by the iron hand 
of Russia. As the soft earth rises beside a heavily built 
dam, so on the hither side of the boundary of Russia 
the Polish people rebels against a milder government 
in Prussia. The Austrian Poles are the most fortunate. 
They hold the balance in the conflicts of other nation- 
alities, and require to be paid for any service to the 
Government by rewards for Galicia. Thus while jealously 



138 CENTRAL EUROPE 

guarding the autonomy of their province, they exercise 
a decisive influence upon the rest of the empire. It is 
instructive to observe the Poles playing a ruling part in 
Galicia. There the Ruthenians (Little Russians), who also 
people the north of the Bukovina, belong to the Greek 
Church and bear the heavy yoke of Polish govern- 
ment. 

Verv different from the position of the Poles in 
Austria is that of their neighbours on the other side of 
the Carpathian ridge, the Slovaks of Upper Hungary, 
whose social conditions are of the very poorest. Quite 
unlike German Austria, Hungary is not seriously troubled 
by the neighbouring Slavs on both sides of her territory. 

When the Slavs (Sclavini), about the year 530, began 
their advance towards the Balkan peninsula, they were 
established to the north of the Lower Danube. How 
long the plains there and the whole mountain country of 
Transylvania were occupied by a Slavonic population no 
historical record exists to show. Numerous Slavonic 
names of rivers and places, however, bear witness to the 
prolonged use of a Slavonic language in this region. It 
was only by the development of Roumanian nationality 
and the immigration of the Magyars that the broad belt 
of population was formed which now divides the Slavs 
of the Alps from the Ruthenians. In that wide South 
Slavonic domain which extends from the Dobratsh near 
Villach to the coast of Thrace, and from the innermost 
angle of the Adriatic to the Black Sea, the most important 
line of division is that running from Scutari through 
Nissa to Widdin. This line joins the two points in the 
water boundaries, the Drave and Danube on the one hand 
and the Adriatic on the other, when they cease to 
remain parallel, and having followed a south-eastward 
direction relatively near to each other, diverge towards 
east and south. The division coincides with the course of 
a Roman road, the shortest highway from the Adriatic 
to the Dacian frontier, and along this naturally marked 
connection the old Albanian stock advanced towards 
the interior, going north-eastward nearly as far as Nissa. 



THE PEOPLES 139 

Their language is essentially the ancient Illyrian altered 
in form by prolonged Roman influence and long con- 
tact with the Slavs. Between this farthest outpost of 
the Albanians and the highest spot in the valley of the 
Timok where Roumanian is spoken, remains an isthmus 
on the language-chart which is but some sixty miles wide, 
connecting the territories of the Servians and Bulgarians. 
The great isolated domain occupied by the language of 
the Servian races has in its interior but few districts with 
remnants of German speech, and at its edges only a 
strip at Trieste and on the west shore of the Adriatic of 
that Italian civilisation which in the Dalmatian towns is 
overwhelmed by the Slavonic idiom. The lingual differ- 
ences between the Slovenes in the south of Styria and 
Carinthia, and in Carniola, and the Croats and Servians 
(to whom the Montenegrins belong) are less important 
than the religious differences which make a division — 
often unfriendly — between the Roman Catholic Slovenes 
and Croats, and the Servians who belong to the Greek 
confession. These latter are the mainstay of the idea of 
South-Slavonic unity, which, however, could only be 
realised by a complete revolution in the political confor- 
mation of the continent. 

The Bulgarian nation occupies an entirely indepen- 
dent position, inhabiting both slopes of the Balkans and 
their foreland, but its hopes for the future possession 
of Macedonia are in direct opposition to those of the 
Servians. The Bulgarian name originally belonged to a 
Finnish tribe, which left its home between the Volga and 
Don before the close of the fifth century and shook the 
Byzantine Empire by its attacks. Being supported in 
these by Slavonic races, the Bulgarians, even at the 
time when they began to found a mighty empire in the 
Balkan countries, became gradually assimilated to the 
Slavs. Their brilliant history seemed to be ended 
when they were brought under the Turkish yoke. They 
bore this heavy time of tribulation, however, without 
yielding. 

The great Uralo-Altaic race to which belonged the 



i 4 o CENTRAL EUROPE 

ancestors of the Bulgarian people, has at different times 
exercised a profound influence upon the destinies of 
Central Europe. The advance of the Huns gave the im- 
petus to that great movement of races with which ancient 
history closes. The Avars took a violent part in the fresh 
conformation of Europe which marks the opening of the 
Middle Ages, and even in 1241 an inroad of Tartars 
threatened to overrun the eastern frontier countries of 
Central Europe, which were then just beginning to develop 
their civilisation. Among the peoples who resisted the 
Tartar incursion was a race which had become established 
in Central Europe, and had there formed a powerful state, 
the Magyars, who were akin to the Finns, but had been 
a little influenced by the Turks. As the Sarmatian 
Jazyges had done in ancient, and the Avars in mediaeval 
times, so the swarms of Hungarian riders had overflowed 
the lowland of the middle Danube. This district, which 
is climatically an outpost of the steppe country about the 
Black and Caspian Seas, became once more the theatre 
of a life native to the steppes. From their new home the 
Hungarians for centuries kept the lands west of them in 
terror by their far-reaching predatory excursions, which 
extended to the North Sea, to the Atlantic, across the 
Pyrenees, and in Italy to Naples and Taranto. One 
horde of riders completed a circuit of the Alps. Not 
until the decisive victory of Otto the Great on the Lech 
(in 955) were these raids brought to an end, and the 
Magyars compelled to confine themselves to a settled 
existence within their lowland. There their power grew 
by the inclusion of succeeding races from the steppes and 
by absorption of subjugated national elements. A severe 
crisis was caused in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries 
by the Turkish invasion, which seemed as if it would gain 
a firm foothold. But as soon as it had been reconquered 
by the Austrian forces Hungary recovered itself, and the 
national spirit of the Magyars increased rapidly. Since 
1866 they have obtained an independence which they use 
energetically to strengthen their own nationality at the 
expense of the other races belonging to the empire, 



THE PEOPLES 



141 



although they form not an absolute, but only a relative 
majority. In no other state of Europe has the govern- 
ment been so successful, and in no other except Russia 
so unscrupulous, in the means by which it has tried to 
force upon the other elements of the population the lan- 
guage of the dominant majority. 

In Hungary the fact stands out most clearly that the 
present conception of nationality is dominated by the 
token of language and has little to do with descent. The 



erman s 

51.1% 




e^ ws^'-fes- Rumanians 
FlG. 25. — Diagram to show Nationalities. 



movements of population have everywhere brought together 
racial elements of so widely differing origin that very few 
districts can claim to have kept a population which is 
the almost unmingled offspring of a single race. It is 
possible that the Jews come nearest to being able to 
claim the distinction of pure blood. From the western 
districts of the Mediterranean, over which they had become 
scattered during the Roman Empire, they came eastward 
with western civilisation. At present the belt occupied 



i 4 2 CENTRAL EUROPE 

most thickly by them lies on the eastern frontier of 
Central Europe. From Moldavia, through Eastern 
Hungary, the Bukovina, and Galicia, to Russian Poland, 
stretches a connected tract in which ten to fifteen per 
cent, of the population consists of Jews. Here they are 
established as a nation, having their own tongue, a dialect 
of German with Jewish words and terms, and their own 
dress. In the Vistula government their numbers have 
lately been increased by the severity with which they 
were hunted out of interior Russia, under a decree 
restricting their right of settlement to the western depart- 
ments of the empire. Among the provinces of Germany, 
Posen, Hesse, and Alsace are those in which they are most 
numerous ; and among the towns, Frankfort-on-the-Main 
in particular. They are also relatively numerous in the 
Netherlands. 

The enormous variety of peoples united in Central 
Europe need a common tongue for mutual communica- 
tion. German is understood everywhere from Galatz, 
Sofia, Sarayevo, Trieste, Geneva, and Antwerp far into the 
interior of Russia. Only the most backward regions of 
Servia and Montenegro must be excepted. All the rest 
of Central Europe, consciously or unconsciously, willingly 
or unwillingly, belongs to the sphere of German civilisation. 
Life, the inexorable, pours water into the wine of national 
fanaticism, and is duly at hand to prevent its branches 
from shooting to heaven. 

Note on Authorities. — The ancient ethnography was established by 
the admirable works of Zeuss, 1837, and Miillenhoff, 1870-1887. 

The peoples of the present day are pretty nearly all to be found in the 
Danubian regions, and have been excellently described by experts in 
the twenty-four volumes of Die Oesterreich-Ungarische Monarchie in 
Wort und Bild, 1 884-1 902, which were published at the wish and with 
the co-operation of the Crown Prince Rudolf. 

Der Deutsche Volkstum, 1898, is a work edited by Hans Meyer and 
produced by ten learned men ; the vividly written geographical section 
was prepared by A. Kirchhoff. 



CHAPTER X 

THE STATES 

Central Europe contains a considerable number of 
districts which, by their conformation or their river 
system, are either so bound together within, or so dis- 
tinctly shut off from without, as to be adapted to become 
the nuclei of states. The demands of these natural 
formations have sometimes been overridden by the arbit- 
rary creations of alien and conquering powers ; the 
invading Turks and the French under Napoleon tore 
off in wild greed whatever of Central Europe they 
could snatch ; and the Roman Empire, in its day, con- 
sidered nothing but the securing of convenient boundaries 
for its Mediterranean possessions. All of these trampled 
under foot the true political life that was growing up in 
Central Europe. Of all the great conquerors in this part 
of the world, only one worked in the direction of political 
construction and permanent development — Charlemagne. 

He forced the German races, which had previously 
been divided between the Alps and the North Sea, into a 
political aggregation, and this, after the disruption of his 
great dominion, formed the groundwork of the German 
realm. The Rhine, of which from 870 onward the 
whole basin belonged to this kingdom, was the natural 
guarantee of its coherence. The rapids at Bingen, 
however, which in those days had not been brought 
into subjection, interrupted the navigation. A cause of 
still more importance in perpetuating the division be- 
tween North and South Germany was the old diversity 
of race. The Saxons, between the Hartz Mountains 
and the North Sea, always submitted unwillingly to a 
king of another race, and did not give an unconditional 



144 



CENTRAL EUROPE 



support to kingship unless it was borne by one of them- 
selves. While their interests were involved in contact with 
the Slavs, the Danes, and the sea, the Swabians, in the 
kindlier regions of South-Western Germany and Switzer- 
land where traces of Roman civilisation still lingered, 
sought relations with Burgundy and Italy, and found 
gates of international trade for themselves in the seaports 
of those countries. The Franks, who dwelt between these 
peoples from the Moselle to the Upper Main, might have 
reconciled their diverging interests had they succeeded in 
gaining power enough to keep the royal seat in their land. 
But this changed its place, being sometimes with them 
and sometimes with the Saxons or the Swabians, and 
although the choice and coronation of the rulers belonged 
to Frankish towns, Frankfort and Aix-la-Chapelle, the 
mediaeval German Empire entirely lacked the influence 
of a capital city to dominate, unite, and bring into line 
the currents of national life. The uniting power of 
kingship was weakened by the lack of a fixed centre, 
but even more by the fact that the highest aims of the 
imperial policy did not lie within the borders of Germany, 
but in the wider horizon of the conflict of the Empire 
and the Papacy. The more distinctly imperial policy 
became riveted to Italy, the more certain was the separate 
political development of North Germany in a course of 
its own. Even the destruction of the power of Henry 
the Lion did not put an end to this independent activity 
of the north. The sea power of the German Hanseatic 
League, and the expansion of the Teutonic Order as far as 
Livonia, arose without help from the supreme Imperial 
Government. Later on, the selfish policy of imperial 
dynasties favoured the disintegration of the empire. 

The Swiss Confederation from the fourteenth century 
onward detached itself by degrees from Germany, and 
even dared to attempt the conquest of part of the imperial 
territory. The delta of the Rhine, too, became less and 
less firmly united to it. It was Charles the Fifth, however, 
who as heir of Charles the Bold, was the first to reckon 
this district as part of his Spanish patrimony, and in doing 



THE STATES 145 

so to prepare for it an entirely independent fate. The 
end of the Middle Ages, with the constant friction between 
nobles and towns, completed the political disintegration of 
South-Western Germany, and brought about that per- 
nicious array of minor states that left this region a helpless 
prey to greedy neighbours as soon as their attacks should 
be invited by the interior decay of the Empire. 

That condition was produced by the Reformation. 
Failing to permeate the whole of Germany, it caused a 
cleavage of the Empire, and the bitterness of feeling grew 
to such heights that German aid helped foreign powers to 
become masters of German country. The Thirty Years' 
War destroyed the northern and western frontiers of the 
Empire. Only the weakness of Germany rendered pos- 
sible the artificial creation by Sweden of a great northern 
power, which occupied not only the most valuable tracts 
on the coast of the Baltic, but also the mouths of the 
Elbe and the Weser. Even at the period of this catas- 
trophe the north of Germany, on the whole, had fought for 
the Reformation and the south against it. The subsequent 
course of events favoured the development of a duality of 
political powers. While the western frontier was but 
weakly defended against the rapacity of Louis the Four- 
teenth, Austria bent its whole strength to driving back the 
Turks and reconquering Hungary. The aspiring Electo- 
rate of Brandenburg, on the other hand, undertook the 
protection of the north and east, and wrested the first 
gains from Sweden and Poland. The emancipation of 
East Prussia from the suzerainty of Poland gave to the 
great Elector a firm footing of power outside the Empire, 
and to his successor the foundations of kingship. The 
struggle of Prussia to attain a position of equality with 
Austria began with the conquest of Silesia, and was 
further displayed in the share taken in the division of 
Poland. If in the struggle against Napoleon Austria. 
showed the more stubborn resistance, in the last fight 
for freedom Prussia did the utmost and strained every 
nerve. In the German Confederation, whose thirty-seven 
secondary and minor states grouped themselves in varying 



146 CENTRAL EUROPE 

political formations around the two great powers, the 
balance of predominance wavered. But Prussia's claim 
to the supremacy of the German people was favoured by 
the circumstance that in 1815 it only recovered so much 
of its great Polish possessions as was absolutely indispens- 
able to the junction of its eastern frontier, and that by 
way of amends it sought an equivalent, partly in Saxony, 
partly along the Lower Rhine in the former territories of 
the spiritual Electors, whom the Revolution, which dug the 
grave of the old German Empire, had swept away. 
Prussia thus became more German and extended to the 
threatened western frontier of Germany. Nor was this 
all. Enlightened and foreseeing, it entered, by the 
foundation (in 1833) of the Customs Union, upon the 
path leading to the economic union of the greater part of 
the nation. The decision, however, between the " Greater 
German " idea which regarded the union of all German 
races, " Wherever sounds the German tongue," as the aim 
and principle of every future change, and the " Lesser 
German " idea of firm unity for all Germans outside of 
Austria, could only be reached by blood and sword. A 
ground of quarrel arose between the two great powers of 
Germany over the fate of the duchies of Schleswig and 
Holstein which they had emancipated from the rule of 
Denmark in 1864. Arms decided the question in favour 
of Prussia. That Power now proceeded to the junction 
of its provinces, which had hitherto been divided into two 
groups. Some states which had taken part with the 
enemy were incorporated, and all the twenty-one states of 
North Germany were united into the North German 
Confederation. As the four southern states of Germany 
were also induced to enter into alliance, France found all 
Germany except Austria united to resist it in 1870. The 
reward of victory was the recovery of Alsace with a part 
of Lorraine and Metz. The inspiring sense that at last a 
united national power, and that alone, had succeeded in 
defending the frontier which had so often been swept 
away by hostile attacks, led all those who had participated 
in the victory to unite voluntarily in forming the German 



THE STATES 147 

Empire and raising the King of Prussia to the position of 
German Emperor. 

The German Empire has natural and satisfying bound- 
aries on almost all sides. Extended between the Alps and 
the North Sea, between the Bohemian mountains and the 
Baltic, it suffices to itself, threatens no neighbour, covets 
no foreign territory, but is resolved to permit no one to 
lay hand upon its own. 

On the western side of Germany lie, like fragments 
broken from the walls of an old fortress, Switzerland, 
Luxemburg, Belgium, and the Netherlands. In their 
present form they are all creations of the nineteenth 
century. 

Until the French Revolution the Swiss Confederation 
was an alliance for mutual protection of small independent 
states, an aristocratic gradation of rights existing, not only 
as between the various states but as between the various 
districts of the separate states. This league of North and 
Central Switzerland had no fixed connection with the two 
independent confederations of the Grisons and Valais, 
though permanent friendly relations subsisted. The French 
Revolution overthrew these conditions and established a 
Helvetian Republic upon a foundation of equal rights. 
The recovery of sovereignty by the cantons, which had 
been effected within it, was confirmed in 18 15, and 
Switzerland received the advantage of increased territory 
and the guarantee of her neutrality by the great powers. 
A democratic movement, which did not attain its aim 
without violence, subsequently led to greater centralisation. 
Since 1848 Switzerland has been not a confederation of 
states, but a confederated state. 

More complex was the evolution of the kingdom of 
the Netherlands, which was constructed by the Congress 
of Vienna out of three territories swallowed up by the 
revolution and incorporated into France — the old Habs- 
burg Netherlands, the United Provinces of the Netherlands, 
which had been free, and the bishopric of Liege. It 
was given to a prince of Nassau and Orange. The spirit 
of the Vienna Congress has here left a fine memorial of 



148 CENTRAL EUROPE 

itself in one of the most ridiculous frontier lines to be 
found on the map of Europe. The frontier towards. 
Rhenish Prussia is not formed by the Meuse north of 
Maaseyk, but by a line running for more than fifty miles at 
a distance of from three to five miles from its right bank. 
While neutrality was guaranteed to these three territories, 
the King of the Netherlands entered the German Con- 
federation on account of another part of the domains 
assigned to him, the Grand Duchy of Luxemburg, the 
inheritance of which was settled in the male line. Luxem- 
burg became a German fortress and received a German 
garrison. 

In making this fresh political settlement the Powers 
underrated the significance of the fact that ever since 
the taking of Antwerp in 1585, which confirmed 
the Spanish power and the Catholic religion in the 
south, leaving the Reformed north to pursue its free de- 
velopment alone, the two parts of the Netherlands had 
had different destinies. Acute opposition to the Hague 
Government was not slow to arise in the Southern 
Netherlands. Although the two main currents of this 
opposition, the Clerical and the Liberal, were actuated 
by very diverse motives, they made common cause 
when the revolution of Paris in 1830 gave them a 
chance of raising their banner. France gave them the 
victory, and secured the independence of the old Habs- 
burg Netherlands and the bishopric of Liege under the 
name of the kingdom of Belgium, to which was added 
the greater part of Luxemburg, and even a number 
of German communes belonging to that state. The 
neutrality of the newly formed state was guaranteed by 
the Powers. The breaking up of the German Confedera- 
tion in 1866 brought to the front the question of the 
future of the remaining portions of Luxemburg. The 
King of Holland wished to sell Luxemburg to France, 
but a storm of indignation in Germany prevented this. 
Luxemburg ceased to be a German fortress, but remained 
in the Customs Union. In 1890, a queen succeeded to 
the crown of Holland ; all connection with that kingdom 



THE STATES 149 

ceased, and a purely German dynasty came in. The 
inhabitants of Luxemburg speak German, but the official 
tongue of the Government is French. 

The buffer states which a cautious diplomacy has 
placed between France and Germany depend for their 
existence not entirely upon the guarantee of the Powers, 
whose promise has never yet been put to any very severe 
test, but upon their own prosperous strength. They 
have proved their claim to independence by their own 
successful labour, and have become valued and indispen- 
sable members of the family of Europe's states. 

On the eastern frontier of Germany things have fol- 
lowed a very different course. The broad opening of 
the North German lowland towards the vast plains of the 
east has been a source of anxiety as often as the Slavs 
have succeeded in establishing a powerful state. The 
growth of Poland under Jagello's dynasty, after its union 
with Lithuania (1386— 1572), hemmed in the domain of the 
Teutonic (German) Order. East Prussia passed through this 
period as a Polish fief surrounded by Polish territories. 
But the more Poland extended its supremacy, the clearer 
became its lack of fixed natural boundaries, and the 
greater the disproportion between the strength of the 
ruling nation and the number of subjects speaking other 
tongues. Only a strong Government could have achieved 
the task of maintaining a position so threatened. But the 
power of the monarchy diminished rapidly from the time 
when it became elective. From the beginning of the 
eighteenth century Russian influence decided the selec- 
tion and the action of the kings. No person acquainted 
with history can maintain that the downfall of Poland 
robbed the Central European Powers of any protection 
against the gigantic power of Russia. Poland had long 
abdicated that function. Although herself neutral in the 
Seven Years' War, she served as a basis of the Russian 
operations. Immediately afterwards, the influence of 
Russia upon the internal troubles of Poland increased to 
such a degree that the subjugation of the entire country 
by Russia seemed to be at hand. The question for the 



150 CENTRAL EUROPE 

German Powers was not whether Poland could be pre- 
served or revived ; the only choice before them was 
whether they would see the country swallowed whole by 
Russia or secure to themselves some part of the expiring 
country's inheritance. For Prussia that was a question 
of life and death. If the whole expanse of Poland fell 
gradually into the arms of Russia, if her iron grasp were 
to be laid upon all the course of the Vistula and the 
German town of Dantzig, then East Prussia, a province 
which had shown itself to be untenable in isolation, 
would certainly disappear into the maw of the monster at 
the first opportunity. The Russians had already occu- 
pied it for four years during the Seven Years' War. 

Frederick would have endangered the future of his 
own country if he had failed to seize the opportunity 
of establishing the connection between his eastern marches 
and Pomerania. Beyond this he did not go. It was 
his successor who loaded the state with too great an 
addition of Polish territory, which proved itself at the 
first critical moment not a support, but a worthless 
burden. Thus in 1815 Prussia finally withdrew within 
narrower bounds, the narrowest indeed which would 
suffice to secure the indispensable connection between 
the Prussian and the Silesian wings of its territory. All 
Western Europe felt the impending danger of seeing 
Russia pass beyond the meridian of Dantzig. The 
worthlessness of the soothing concession that Poland 
should be added to the despotic empire as a constitu- 
tional monarchy could not for a moment escape such a 
statesman as Stein. What he foresaw became fact in 
1832. From that time onward there was no longer a 
kingdom of Poland, but only a Government of the Vistula. 

The possibility, indeed, of being simultaneously attacked 
on both sides lays on the German Empire the burden of 
heavy military preparations. But as the warlike disposi- 
tions of its western and eastern neighbours grow and 
become more menacing, so do all its members become 
the more closely knit together. No one can venture to 
say the same of the German Empire's natural ally, Austro- 



THE STATES 151 

Hungary. The occupation of the southern and of the 
northern foreland of the Tatra up to the salt-mines of 
Wieliczka and Bochnia (in 1769 and 1770) was the first 
step towards the partition of Poland, and that event had 
ominous consequences to the coherence and inner equili- 
brium of the Austrian state. 

One of the most essential causes tending to the unsatis- 
factory condition of the whole Austrian state is the fact, 
that the threefold historical character of the natural and 
ethnological divisions which meet to the east of the Jab- 
lunka Pass is not represented by a corresponding poli- 
tical trinity, but by a disproportionate duality. To the 
Hungarian half of the empire in its vigorous and pros- 
perous unity stands opposed a monstrous residuum, with 
economic powers diminished by sacrifices for the sake of 
the Polish appendages, and political powers ' divided and 
neutralised by the particularist politics of the Poles. 
These pursue the easy and profitable task of encouraging 
dissension between the other races and making their own 
profit out of them. That is comprehensible enough ; but 
foreigners find it more difficult to understand why it is that 
the German nationality, most threatened in the struggle, 
does not hold together, and why the German clericals come 
to support the Slavs in the repression of their own nation. 

Hungary naturally gains by the political paralysis of 
the Austrian half of the empire, or, to use the official 
designation for once, of " the kingdoms and countries re- 
presented in the Imperial Council." Thanks to the de- 
liberate and energetic action of its statesmen, that kingdom 
secured surprising advantages as far back as 1867, when 
the " Ausgleich " (compromise) established new political 
life among the peoples of the empire. 

Transleithania, the kingdom beyond the Leitha, was 
acknowledged for all time as on a full equality with the rest 
of the countries forming the empire, which on their part 
might very well bear the name of Cisleithania if it were 
not that lands lying far to the east are most unnaturally 
reckoned with them. A crying contrast to this political 
equality is exhibited by the differing degrees with which 



152 CENTRAL EUROPE 

the common duties to the common state, to the army, the 
navy, and foreign policy are fulfilled. 

The Magyars succeeded without any very serious 
opposition from the other races in getting into their own 
hands the direction of Hungary's constitution and admini- 
stration, they having already pacified the Slavs of the 
south by a separate compact in 1868. The kingdom of 
Croatia and Slavonia — Fiume excepted — was to retain its 
viceroy (Banus), its diet, full autonomy in matters of re- 
ligion and education and in some departments of law and 
administration ; above all, the Croatian language was to 
be retained, not only in all the departments subject to the 
kingdom's autonomy, but also in transactions with the 
Croatian sections of every ministerial department, and even 
in the speeches of Croatian deputies to the Hungarian 
parliament when imperial questions were under discussion. 
The name of Dalmatia is joined with that of Croatia and 
Slavonia in the title of the King of Hungary. Its appear- 
ance is something more than an historical reminiscence. 
The constitution of 1867 safeguarded the right of the 
kingdom to demand the restoration of Dalmatia and its 
union with Croatia, but the Magyars have not the slightest 
intention of taking away those Slavs from Austria and 
favouring their union with the other Slavs of the south. 

The question, however, of the incorporation of Bosnia 
and Herzegovina into the empire by which they were 
occupied in 1879, will certainly some day come to the 
front, and with it their claim to national representation. 
This event would be the first stage in the advance of 
Austria-Hungary towards Salonica. Only 21J per cent, 
of the inhabitants of these countries are Roman Catholic, 
while 23 per cent, are Greek Oriental Christians. The 
history of the land, which preserved its independence 
side by side with Servia until the Ottoman Empire over- 
came both, and the persistence of a considerable body of 
Mahomedan population (35 per cent.) will make it easy 
for an intelligent Government to keep the country de- 
veloping along independent lines. Austria- Hungary can 
never suffer the threatening floods of the " Great Servian " 



THE STATES 153 

agitation in Servia and Montenegro to break over 
Bosnia. 

The peculiar name of Herzegovina recalls an episode 
in the endeavours of the district to unite itself with the 
west. It is derived from a native despot, who in the 
middle of the fifteenth century, withdrew from submis- 
sion to Bosnia, and under the title of Herzog (Duke), 
gave his allegiance as a feudal vassal to the Emperor, 
Frederick the Third. This portion, however, of the 
" occupied territory " has long been under the direct 
influence of Montenegro. Here arose the insurrection 
of 1875, which had been quietly fomented by Russia, 
and was fatal to the Turkish rule. Who can tell 
whether on the eve of great events this " scrap of Herze- 
govina " may not once more draw the eyes of the world 
upon her ? 

Of the Servian countries, Montenegro was established 
by Russia, and is a mountain fastness unconditionally 
devoted to that Power. Originally a feudal dukedom of 
the Servian monarchy, Czernagora became, after the battle 
of the Amselneld which destroyed that kingdom in the year 
1389, a place of retreat for fugitive bands of Servians. 
The brave and hardy shepherd race has held out in its 
wild and inaccessible mountains against the attacks of 
the Turks, and has never been subjugated by them. The 
family of their ecclesiastical rulers, the hereditary Vla- 
dika of the country, developed in the nineteenth century 
into a real dynasty, a royal house, which drew closer 
the links of alliance with Russia forged in the previous 
century, and, protected by Russia, passed successfully 
even through so severe a crisis as the defeat of 1862. 
The active participation of Montenegro in the great 
decisive struggles with Turkey was rewarded by a con- 
siderable extension of territory, which doubled the 
country's area and raised its importance even more 
signally. Montenegro not only gained fruitful valleys 
and lowlands, but also that access to the sea at Antivari 
and Dulcigno to which it had so long aspired in vain. 

On the north-east a strip of Turkish territory divides 



154 CENTRAL EUROPE 

Montenegro from Servia only by thirty miles. The 
mediaeval Servian kingdom, after a brief hesitation as to 
whether it would unite itself with Rome or Byzantium, 
became the seat of an autonomous Servian Church be- 
longing to the Greek confession, and attained its greatest 
strength, at the expense of the decaying Roman Em- 
pire of the East, before the middle of the fourteenth 
century. King Stephen Dushan then ruled from the 
Danube to ^tolia, from the Balkans to the Bocche 
di Cattaro, and from the Struma to the shores of 
Epirus. The independence of the kingdom was destroyed 
by the Turks at the battle of the Amselfield (Kossvo- 
polye) in 1389. On the same field, at the later dates, 
of 1448 and 1680, the most hopeful efforts of Hungary 
and Austria for the freeing of Servia were defeated. 
It was not until 1804 that the internal weakness of 
Turkey offered to the Servians the opportunity of a 
successful rising. After fierce battles of varying issues, 
a dealer in pigs who had risen to wealth became chief 
(Knes) in 18 17, and in 1830 was acknowledged by the 
Porte as Prince of Servia, becoming the founder of 
the existing dynasty. When the Porte, under pressure 
from the European Powers, withdrew its troops from 
Belgrade in 1862, and from three smaller fortresses in 
1867, the country was left to develop in freedom. Its 
evolution was unstable and stormy. In 1876 Servia. 
hastily, and without consideration, opened the war with 
Turkey and was only saved by the intervention of the 
Powers from the direct results of defeat. At the parti- 
tion of Turkey a considerable addition of territory was 
awarded to Servia, and tracts of country were united to 
her in which the Albanian and Bulgarian languages were 
spoken. 

While the influences of Austria and Russia have pre- 
dominated alternately in Servia — which has called itself 
a kingdom since 1882 — it is by the latter Power that 
the culture and development of Bulgaria have been 
moulded. The Bulgarians possess a mediaeval history 
rich in events and full of catastrophe. The Turkish rule 



THE STATES 155 

succeeded, and was here particularly oppressive. The 
insurrection of 1876, which was suppressed not only with 
severity but with ferocity and with sanguinary violence, 
gave Russia a ground of intervention. The Congress of 
Berlin awarded to the Principality of Bulgaria the 
territory between the Danube and the Balkans, and in 
addition the country about Sofia at the sources of the 
Struma and the Isker, while the whole of Macedonia, 
was restored to Turkey, and Eastern Rumelia, between 
the Balkans and the mountains of Rhodope, was placed 
under the suzerainty of Turkey as an autonomous 
province. A revolution in Philippopolis displaced the 
government of the viceroy in 1885, and paved the way 
for a union with Bulgaria. Alexander of Battenberg, 
the first Prince of Bulgaria, with a full knowledge that he 
was contravening the decision of the Powers, supported 
this revolution, and called himself Prince of the Two 
Bulgarias. The protest of the Powers emboldened Servia 
to attack the principality at this grave crisis, but the 
Bulgarian army, trained under Russian officers, victoriously 
defended the frontier. The union continued to subsist,, 
notwithstanding the dangers to which Russian intervention 
in the free development of Bulgaria exposed the country. 
In Bulgaria the severity and long continuance of 
Turkish rule had so completely broken the thread of 
historical development, that an entirely new political edi- 
fice has had to be constructed in our own time, having 
no possibility of any link with the far past. The Turkish 
power has had far less influence upon the fate of the 
southern and eastern foreland of the Carpathians.. 
Here two states, Wallachia and Moldavia, grew up in the 
Middle Ages, peopled by Roumanian inhabitants of the 
Greek faith, and standing in dependent relations to Hun- 
gary which gradually weakened. Both became subject 
to Turkey but retained their Christian Boyars — a native 
aristocracy holding great landed possessions, and their 
Hospodars, chosen from among this aristocracy and the 
heads of the Church, and no caste of Turkish lords succeeded 
in settling within their domain. Not until the eighteenth 



156 



CENTRAL EUROPE 



century, when the influence of Russia became threatening, 
did the Porte adopt the plan of giving the Hospodar's 
office to Phanariot Greeks — who paid well for it — and of 
changing these rulers often. The Congress of Paris in 1856 
accorded to the Danubian principalities the fullest measure 
of internal independence ; the payment of tribute and the 







Cft$ 



9' 



gaha Rurn« 



Fig. 26. — Diagram to show Area of States. 



denial of independent foreign relations were almost the 
only real signs left of the suzerainty of Turkey. In 1857 
the two principalities demanded the formation of a single 
Roumanian state under a prince of foreign extraction. 
This aim, which was opposed by the private interests of 
adjacent Powers, was reached by progressive steps. A 



THE STATES 



*57 



Moldavian Boyar, Alexander Kusa, chosen to be Hospodar 
by the diets of both the countries, was the first Prince of 
all Roumania. After he was dethroned, Charles the First, 
a prince of the Catholic line of the Hohenzollerns, was 
elected to the throne. By the share he took in the 




Fig. 27. — Diagram to show Population (a.d. 1900). 



Russo-Turkish war, he raised Roumania to complete in- 
dependence. As a compensation for Bessarabia, which 
had been taken by Russia, Roumania received the 
Dobruja, with the port of Constanza. Roumania was 
recognised as a kingdom in 1881. 

The whole system of Central European states is 



158 CENTRAL EUROPE 

complicated, but not quite devoid of symmetry. Its 
centre is occupied by two great Powers, each with 
dominions exceeding 200,000 square miles, the boun- 
daries of whose territories and peoples adjoin so closely 
that no internal movement of the one can be indif- 
ferent to the other ; each has an interest inseparable 
from its own security in the well-being and strength of 
the other. Both have retained from the days of their 
closer political association a certain looseness of internal 
formation. The German Empire is a voluntary associa- 
tion of states competing in their internal development, but 
forming on the basis of their one nationality a firmly 
welded unity in matters of defence by land and sea, and 
of economics and law. The unity of Austro-Hungary is 
in form more complete, but in fact, owing to the varied 
admixture of races, less solidly secured. Where the com- 
mon frontier of the two great Powers ends, at the Lake 
of Constance, Switzerland, well sheltered by the moun- 
tains, lies between them and their great neighbour on the 
west. The weak copy of Switzerland, the Republic of 
Cracow, formed between the great Powers in 1 8 1 5 at the 
other extremity of their frontier, did not manage to last 
long ; it was swallowed by Austria in 1846. In yet other 
quarters the two Powers endure a common fate in being 
shut out by states of moderate size from the mouths of 
their largest rivers. Compared with the populations of the 
great Powers, one of which has more than fifty-six millions 
of inhabitants and the other forty-five, Roumania, Bulgaria, 
and Servia, which have eleven millions among them, form 
about an equivalent to the three Netherland states of 
Holland, Belgium, and Luxemburg. The latter, how- 
ever, have in every respect a far closer connection with 
the Central European civilisation than have the states of 
the Lower Danube. Their remoteness is evidenced by 
the backwardness of their national education. The in- 
dependent states on the Lower Danube and those at 
the mouths of the Rhine, Meuse, and Scheldt have a 
further point of resemblance, however, in the fact that 
they are alike subjected to powerful influences from. 



THE STATES 159 

Powers not situated in Central Europe. As in Belgium, 
the French element comprises nearly half the population, 
while French was until recently the dominant political 
language, thus further increasing the susceptibility of the 
country to French influences ; so in the south-eastern 
states of Central Europe the will of Russia carries special 
weight ; they are bound to Russia by their remembrance 
of the Turkish War, by their dependence on the Black 
Sea, and most of all by the Gneco-Oriental Church. The 
Montenegrin outpost carries this influence of Russia up 
to the Adriatic Sea. 

Even this general glance at the conformation of the 
Central European group of states leaves no doubt of the 
direction towards which the eyes of this circle of nations 
must be turned in watchful attention. France was the 
most dangerous neighbour as long as its population and 
strength exceeded those of every other individual power 
on the Continent. At the present day it stands only on an 
equal footing with those in the heart of the Continent, and 
shares with them the feeling that their spheres of power 
are cramped by the growth of Russian and British 
imperial power. The old equilibrium of Europe is 
inclining more and more in favour of the East. The 
political field has widened. A new equilibrium can only 
be established if the Powers of Central Europe stand 
shoulder to shoulder for the maintenance of the free and 
peaceful economic development which must reach ever 
farther and farther abroad, as the increasing populations 
find their homes growing too narrow for them. The 
belief in a permanent and intimate political agreement 
among the peoples of Europe would be premature, con- 
sidering the acute differences which history has bequeathed 
to them ; but the position of the peoples who surround 
the Alps is such as to warn them imperatively that they 
should reach their hands across the mountain tops one to 
another in an economic alliance, for the common safe- 
guarding of their interests, amidst the great Powers of 
the world. 



160 CENTRAL EUROPE 

Note on Authorities. — The territorial development of the States of 
Central Europe is exhibited by numerous historical atlases ; the most 
important of these, and that upon which most of the others are founded, 
is K. von Spruner-Menke's Historisch-Geographischer Hand- Atlas. 
Third edition, 1862-1879. 118 sheets. 

The development of the States in the last century is set forth in an 
enlightened and impartial manner by C. Seignobos, Histoire politique de 
I Europe contemporaine, 1897. 

Friedrich Ratzel's Politische Geographie, 1897, gives a general idea 
of the relative stages of civilisation and decay of the various States, 
considered from a geographical standpoint. 



CHAPTER XI 

ECONOMIC GEOGRAPHY 

By nature, Central Europe belongs to the great forest- 
clad region of the earth which extends across 1 50 degrees 
of longitude, from the Atlantic to the Sea 
of Okhotsk. Connected growths of timber Animal ani > 

Vfpftart V 

once prevailed over far the larger portion of L 

its surface, and would do so again if any 

great catastrophe came to overwhelm the population of 

this region, and to leave the powers of nature once more 

in the ascendant throughout the lands now so highly 

developed by human cultivation. 

From the abundant flora of our meadows and heaths, 
however, botanists conclude that the forest country can 
never have been entirely unbroken. Considerable dis- 
tricts of Central Europe must naturally have been free 
from forest ; not only the high regions of all the great 
mountains — where a shortened period of vegetation and 
loads of snow and of hoar-frost tend first to stunt, and 
finally to prevent the growth of trees — but also large 
lowland tracts, where either too much moisture or too 
little prevented trees from doing well. The dusty plains 
of Hungary and Roumania swarmed, even in the time of 
the ancients, with hordes of mounted nomads ; and in 
the north-west of Germania the Romans came upon a 
wide domain of moorland, contrasting sharply with the 
forests of the interior. Even in the forest country great 
clearings were formed by the river valleys with their 
boggy grounds that were sometimes green meadows and 
sometimes alder swamps. 

That there were great forests, covering wide areas, 

amid which lay but scattered oases of human habitation, is 

161 



162 CENTRAL EUROPE 

declared both by the distribution of archaeological remains 
and by the unequivocal statement of the oldest writers. 
The thickets of the primeval forests formed a surer 
protection for German freedom in those days, and of 
Bohemian independence later on, than did the defensive 
powers of their brave sons. The course by which dif- 
ferent parts of Germany have been won to higher civilisa- 
tion has been by a constant reduction of the forests, and 
the echo of that old struggle still lingers in the pleasant 
names of the German village colonies that rose amid 
the ancient trees. 

Considerable portions of the forests of antiquity still 
remain in Central Europe. If we exclude from the 
reckoning those parts where not more than 6 per cent, 
of the country is woodland, namely 14,000 square miles 
around the North Sea, 26,000 square miles in the heart 
of Hungary and an even greater area in Roumania and 
Bulgaria — some 70,000 square miles in all — then through- 
out the rest of Central Europe, about a third of the sur- 
face is still covered with forests. This territory therefore 
occupies a middle place between the denuded Mediter- 
ranean countries, where the percentage of forest is generally 
less than 15, and those of the north and east, where it rises 
in Sweden to 44, in Finland to 38, and in Russia to 36. 
All the mountains are thickly wooded. Close to rich and 
populous valleys in the Rhine provinces and Hesse-Nassau 
lie thick forests that render the district of Wiesbaden and 
Coblenz the most wooded of the German Empire. In 
the Bohmer Wald, the eastern Alpine countries, and the 
Carpathians, are areas of forest occupying 60 per cent., 
and in the circle of Kimpolung in the Bukovina even 
74 per cent., of the face of the country. Great primeval 
forests are enclosed, too, by the inaccessible mountain 
country in the trunk of the Balkan peninsula. In the 
sandy districts of the North German lowland the train 
runs for hours between silent heaths covered with Scotch 
firs. 

From an extent so great as this, it must inevitably 
follow that the forest, even at the present day, must 



ECONOMIC GEOGRAPHY 163 

exercise a strong influence upon Central European 
methods of cultivation, and also upon conditions of life 
and work among the people. The period in which the 
value of the wood for burning furnishes the only access- 
ible profit, beyond those secondary profits that came from 
the pasturage of cattle, has not yet expired in every 
part of Central Europe. In Bosnia, charcoal-burners are 
still consuming forests apparently inexhaustible. But 
most of the woodlands of Central Europe have already 
fallen under the rule of active commerce, which seeks 
so to deal with them as to transmit the wood, in its most 
profitable shape, to those places where the price is highest. 
A great demand for wood and a great supply of wood 
seldom occur at the same place ; where they do, it is 
principally in the vicinity of certain mines ; but for the 
most part the supply and the demand lie far apart and 
need the mediation of rivers and railways. Large towns, 
and in particular seaports, are the places that crave most 
eagerly for wood. The trunks of which were made the 
piles of Rotterdam, and the ships on which Ruyter and 
Tromp fought their sea-fights, grew in the Black Forest. 
The courses, however, of the timber trade have changed 
in many ways since those times. Nowadays, the har- 
bours of the Rhine delta are full of timber from the 
Baltic countries, from Norway, and from America ; and 
twenty-fold more wood goes up-stream to supply the min- 
ing districts of the Ruhr, than went down the river from 
Germany. In general, the increasing tendency to make 
other uses of water-ways has caused timber rafts to be 
superseded by vessels. Of the greater rivers, only the 
Danube, after its entrance into the Austrian Empire, the 
Vistula, and the Memel have any considerable trade in 
floated timber. Ease of transport has caused great clear- 
ances to be made along the shores of the rivers in the 
countries of Poland and Lithuania. Whole woods have 
been floated away from these countries, and the lumber 
trade of both rivers is now compelled to seek its material 
far to the south, in the swamps of Rokitno and in the 
Carpathians. Besides this great trade in rough timber, 



1 64 CENTRAL EUROPE 

the endeavour to make the wood as valuable as possible 
by working it up is always spreading. Manufactories 
of wood-pulp and cellulose, of impregnated woods for 
bridges, railway sleepers, and telegraph poles, of wood- 
paving, shoemakers' pegs, and matches have increased 
in an astonishing degree during the last twenty or thirty 
years. This introduction of wood products into inter- 
national commerce has, in every country, raised the 
standard of care bestowed upon forests, and has led to 
far-reaching changes in the forests themselves, their 
limits, their preservation, even in their possession and 
the laws relating to them. The forests of Central Europe,, 
as compared with those of the Russian lowland, were 
particularly rich in deciduous trees. One important 
cause of this is that the limit of growth of the beech, 
from the eastern end of the Frische Haff to Kishinev 
in Bessarabia, everywhere nearly follows the eastern 
boundary of Central Europe. It can be demonstrated 
with certainty that deciduous trees formerly occupied 
a far greater area in Germany than did the conifers — 
perhaps double the area. 

In the North German lowland there has been a re- 
markable and triumphant advance of the Scotch fir, an 
advance that has not only been compared with, but has 
been shown to have a direct relation to, the spread of the 
Prussian power, which has slowly grown to supremacy 
over the greater part of that plain. 62 per cent, of its 
woodlands are now occupied by the Scotch fir, and no less 
than 43 per cent, of those of the whole German Empire ; 
while in the woods of Austria the fir {abies) and the pine, 
with percentages of 49 and 19 respectively, far exceed the 
Scotch fir, the percentage of which is but 3. The forests 
of Hungary are very different. In them, even at the pre- 
sent day, the conifers, with a percentage of 18, fall far 
behind the beech with its 52, and the oak with its 28 per 
cent. 

With the greater utilisation of the forests, laws have 
been made for their preservation, and many landlords 
now enclose their woods like gardens and prosecute any 



ECONOMIC GEOGRAPHY 



165 



person who sets foot upon them without special per- 
mission. The greatest landed properties of Central Europe 
naturally belong to great forest regions. In Upper Silesia 
one-fifth of the whole country, an area of 1040 square 
miles, belongs to seven owners. None of these, however, 
can be compared, as to extent of possessions, with Count 
Schonborn-Buchheim, who owns the domain of Munkacs, 
extending over 513 square miles, or a third part of the 




Fig. 28. — Northern Limits of Maize, the Beech, and the Vine. 



County of Bereg, still less with Prince Schwarzenberg, 
whose property in South-East Bohemia covers 686 square 
miles. His ancestor was able, as long ago as 1788, to 
deal with his immense woods like a sovereign by opening 
a canal 33 miles long to float his timber from the Moldau 
basin into that of the Danube, and so to bring his domain 
into touch with the Vienna market. 

Great institutions or monasteries have frequently drawn 
together large forest districts under a common ownership. 
The benefits that result to agriculture in general, when 



1 66 CENTRAL EUROPE 

woods remain upon the mountains and assist in distribut- 
ing the moisture given out by the atmosphere, has often 
been pointed out. But there are many areas of forest 
of which we are compelled to ask ourselves whether they 
have any right to go on existing where space is beginning 
to be insufficient for a growing population. 

Even in the oldest historical times, the great forests 
included great stretches of country almost bare of trees. 
Most of these are marked in the present day by exten- 
sive and highly organised . cattle-farming. In spite of 
the advance of agriculture, this branch of industry holds 
its place in many large areas that vary greatly in nature, 
but have the one characteristic of presenting obstacles, 
either in climate or soil, to the success of agriculture. On 
the south-eastern steppes, the obstacles consist in too little 
moisture and in too high and too prolonged a summer 
temperature ; in the high districts of the mountains the 
obstacle lies in too low a temperature. If, in these parts, 
the steepness, and sometimes the rockiness, of the ground 
contributes to limit the range of cultivation, the long 
saturation of the earth does so, no less decidedly, in 
the marshes and valley bottoms of the lowlands. 

Ever since Homer sang of the " horse-milking " 
nomads on the shores of the Black Sea, mounted peoples 
have made their home in the steppe countries of Europe. 
The progress of higher cultivation, however, has so 
diminished the free spaces where herds of horses could 
run wild that the Pusta of Hortobagy, near Debreczin, 
is now, perhaps, the only spot remaining in Central 
Europe where it is possible to gain some faint idea of 
the life that once prevailed throughout the whole lowland. 
Here, on pastures whose area runs to ioo square miles, 
and amid cattle to the number of 15,000, 4000 horses 
live under the care of mounted keepers, the Csikoshs. 
Hungary still remains, notwithstanding the changes of 
civilisation, the leading country in the matter of horse- 
breeding. Of the gh million horses in Central Europe, 
2 \ million live within the circle of the Carpathians. 
Another horse-breeding centre which can compare with 



ECONOMIC GEOGRAPHY 167 

Hungary, not indeed in extent, but in deliberate organisa- 
tion, and in results that have been tested by modern 
warfare, is Lithuania, whence come two-thirds of the 
cavalry mounts of the German army. From Schleswig 
to East Friesland a strong kind of horse is bred, which 
is by no means so heavy as the Brabant breed of the 
Belgian lowlands. What Central Germany has gained in 
this respect is not so much a gift of nature as the fruit 
of her own unremitting labour, which has never suffered 
itself to be daunted by such recurring catastrophes as 
the Thirty Years' War and the Napoleonic Wars. How 
different in this respect, as in others, is the position of 
Britain behind the silver barrier of the sea waves ! 

Many of the districts in which horse-breeding has 
grown important have also become competitors in the 
matter of cattle - farming. But differences of natural 
conditions have led in this department to a more marked 
divergence both in aims and in results. In the south- 
east, from Podolia and Roumania across the Hungarian 
plain to the Balkan peninsula and over the Italian frontier, 
the prevalent breed is that of light-grey Eastern European 
cattle, with narrow heads sloping towards the mouth, 
long flat foreheads, and horns of considerable length, that 
bend upwards and twist sideways. These muscular, 
weather-hardened beasts of the steppe are distinguished 
by great powers of walking and of drawing loads ; they 
also fatten well, but give little milk. A complete contrast 
is offered by the cattle of the North Sea district, with 
their abundant milk supply and small powers of work. 
Holland has become the model dairy country of Central 
Europe. Dutch settlements have carried their cattle and 
their methods not only into districts of nature akin to 
their own, such as the delta of the Vistula, but also far 
into the interior. On the reputation of these rested that 
confidence in Dutch butter which, fifteen years ago, pre- 
vailed in the English market. A third type of cattle- 
farming occurs in the mountains. The high summer 
pastures are full of nourishing fodder, and the hay 
harvests of the valleys help to supply food for the 



168 CENTRAL EUROPE 

active, short-horned Alpine cattle. The cattle industry 
of the Alps is directed, on the one hand, to the breeding 
of good milch-cows, a branch pursued especially on the 
Upper Italian plain, and, on the other, to obtaining 
abundant supplies of milk, and to the manufacture of 
cheese in great quantities. The exports of cheese from 
the Netherlands and Switzerland stand far ahead of those 
of any other district. The marshes of the North Sea 
and the valleys of the Alps belong to the districts where 
cattle are relatively numerous, the number of head of 
cattle being little, or not at all, less than the population ; 
and their cattle, compared with those of other parts 
where the same proportion holds, such as the steppes to 
the south of the Dobruja and the Bosnia mountains, are 
immeasurably finer and more valuable. The contrary 
extreme is furnished by Istria and Dalmatia, where there 
is hardly one horned beast to six inhabitants. The com- 
bination of the soil of the Karst and a Mediterranean 
summer makes the conditions of life most unfavourable. 
The total number of cattle in the Central European 
states amounts to between 43 and 44 millions, about 
one-third of the population. 

While cattle serve so many useful purposes, and 
while the keeping of them comes into touch at so many 
points with human needs and human labours, the number 
of pigs, which are needed solely to satisfy the increasing 
demand for meat, caused by a growing population and by 
higher standards of life, has risen to nearly 30 millions. 
The districts where they are most largely kept are imme- 
diately adjacent to others in which this branch of farming 
had been 'abandoned under the influence of Mahome- 
danism, and has only recently been resumed. The oak- 
woods of Servia and North Bosnia are the regions where 
most swine are bred, and considerable numbers go thence 
to the important fattening ground of Hungary. In Ger- 
many, the district between the last bend of the Elbe and 
the Upper Ems is especially rich in pigs ; Westphalian 
hams are particularly esteemed. But in other parts, too, 
the pig is of importance in the households of peasants 



ECONOMIC GEOGRAPHY 169 

and tenant farmers. The fattening of swine helps to 
support the tiny farmsteads that eke out a living around 
the great properties of the east. 

The areas in which there are most swine adjoin those 
most frequented by another domesticated animal supplying 
far different needs — the goat. Of the nine and a half mil- 
lions of goats in Central Europe, three millions and a half 
inhabit the mountain countries between the Black Sea and 
the Adriatic. In the Alps their number has been kept down 
ever since the recognition of the drawbacks arising from 
the serious damage they do to growing timber. 

The same districts that keep many goats retain to the 
present day the most ancient method of sheep-farming — 
vast flocks alternating between mountain pastures and 
lowlands. There is a region running from the middle of 
Roumania, between the Alt and the Sereth, through the 
Dobruja, Bulgaria, Servia, and Bosnia, to Dalmatia, in 
which the number of the sheep exceeds the number of 
the people. Of the forty-four millions of sheep in Central 
Europe, eighteen millions belong to this region. 

The life of the half-savage wandering shepherds, 
whose wants are nearly all supplied by their flocks, which 
yield them milk, cheese, pasturma or postrame (hard pressed 
meat dried in the sun and cut into strips), skins, leather, 
and wool, lingers on into the present like a remnant of 
the Middle Ages. 

Very different were the varied circumstances amid 
which sheep-farming developed in more highly cultivated 
countries. In these a great expenditure of capital and of 
intelligence was devoted, at the close of last century, to 
the improvement of the breeds, and even under unpropi- 
tious conditions of climate, a much improved quality of 
wool was produced. In recent times, wool-growing has 
ceased to be remunerative for European breeders work- 
ing under difficult conditions. Australia, Argentina, and 
the Cape are the present leaders in this branch of pro- 
duction. The greatly diminished flocks of Central Europe 
form hardly an eleventh part of the stock upon the earth's 
surface. When the careful nurture of fine-wool sheep 



170 CENTRAL EUROPE 

ceased to be profitable, it was superseded by increased 
breeding of sheep for food. But in this department, 
too, profits have suffered from severe competition, in 
which trans-oceanic countries, with their exports of frozen 
meat, now take part. 

That facilitation of intercourse which causes the 
whole earth to work and feel as a single organism has 
rendered the position and the condition of life in Central 
Europe more difficult. This is especially true of agri- 
culture and the industries depending upon it. The 
plough and the spade rule two-fifths of the area of Central 
Europe. 

Cereals have very long been a possession of Central 
Europe. In the cavern of Aggtelek (Hungary), a 
stratum belonging to the later stone age contained 
not only grains of wheat, but also traces of a slightly 
leavened bread. Notwithstanding this early cultivation 
of wheat in Central Europe, oaten bread was the food of 
the ancient Germani. Barley and wheat they seemed 
to have considered only as materials for the brewing 
of beer. 

Recent times have seen the advance of wheat into 
districts formerly occupied by poorer crops. Into this 
competition between the old native kinds of corn, foreign 
crops, drawn by travel and discovery from distant homes, 
entered. Two of these, buckwheat and maize, are now 
established all over Central Europe. The former appears 
to have been introduced into Europe from its native Asia 
by the Tartars. It did not begin to make its way in 
Central Europe till towards the end of the Middle Ages. 
Now it is important mainly in two districts lying far apart 
— the marshlands and heaths of the north-west, from 
Jutland to the Netherlands, and on the other hand, the 
south-eastern lands which use this quick ripening crop to 
draw a second harvest from their once-reaped fields. 
Along the eastern borders of the Alps, in Styria, Carinthia, 
and Carniola, wide valley hollows are filled towards 
the end of the summer by the pale blossom of buck- 
wheat. 



ECONOMIC GEOGRAPHY 



171 



A far more important part is played by maize in the 
south-east of Central Europe. This crop, belonging to 
the ancient American agriculture of the Incas and the 
Aztecs, was quick to gain a footing in Europe. As a 
fodder crop maize also enters into the agriculture of 
Germany. In the south and east of the Carpathians this 
is distinctly the main crop, occupying more ground than 
any other cereal, not only in Roumania, but also in the 
Bukovina and the south-east of Galicia, along the Upper 




/0Y>f049'/. 



Fig. 29. — The Proportion of Area under Maize to Area under other Cereals. 



Pruth. The high summer temperature of this continental 
district allows it to extend to latitude 49° north in the 
neighbourhood of Lemberg ; but on the west of the 
Carpathians, where it is extensively cultivated, it does not 
reach so far north ; while not only in Moravia, but also 
in the plain of Lower Austria, its cultivation falls dis- 
tinctly behind that of other cereals. In the Austrian 
Empire its culture preponderates only in Southern 
Tyrol, in the Alpine foreland of Carniola and in all the 



172 CENTRAL EUROPE 

Karst countries, from Goritz to Dalmatia and Montenegro. 
In Bosnia it occupies as much ground as wheat, which 
outstrips it in Bulgaria. On the other hand, maize is the 
principal crop throughout all Servia and the southern 
countries of the realm of Hungary from Croatia to Tran- 
sylvania. On the Hungarian plain it is everywhere grown 
abundantly, but, except in some divisions to the east of 
the Theiss, not in excess of wheat. The whole area of 
maize cultivation in Central Europe is more than 21,000 
square miles ; concentrated in one spot, it would cover a 
space larger than Bohemia. 

Hand in hand with the cultivation of maize goes the 
cultivation of wheat, even in countries where the former 
predominates and is the food of the population. In those 
parts wheat is grown principally for export, and only 
secondarily for home consumption. The whole of Cen- 
tral Europe lies within the zone of growing wheat, the only 
limits within its borders being set by the level above the 
sea and the nature of the soil. The rougher heights and 
poorer soils are most suitable for rye, which is the main 
breadstuff of Austria and Germany. The proportional 
areas of wheat and rye grown in Hungary are as three 
to one ; in Austria as one to two ; and in the German 
Empire as one to three. The Hungarian cereal of the 
plain is entirely wheat, some few tracts excepted, such as 
that immediately south-east of Pest and that within the 
bend of the Theiss, where rye predominates. Rye, on 
the other hand, takes the lead in the Carpathians and also 
in the greater part of Galicia. In the Alpine countries 
wheat occupies the first place only in Styria and the 
northern parts of the Carniola, and among the Sudetic 
Mountains only in the lowest basin of Bohemia. The 
whole south-west of the German Empire, as far as the 
rivers Lech, Neckar, Tauber, and Main, is principally a 
wheat country, if triticuma spelta be included as wheat. 
In North Germany, however, wheat-fields predominate 
only in a few favoured tracts, the lowland of Dantzig, 
some marshes of the North Sea, the fertile plain of 
Magdeburg as far as Brunswick, the lowest part of the 



ECONOMIC GEOGRAPHY 



J 73 



Thuringian basin, and the cultivated plains 01 Silesia. 
Everywhere else rye is the rule. The Netherlands are 
in the same case. Only the provinces of North and 
South Holland, and in Belgium those of Brabant, West 
Flanders, and Hainault grow wheat. 




| Wheat more fhan /OO % <^,s comp&rec/ 
. *v///7 ftye 

1 SO% to/00% I I 0%fo50% 

Fig. 30. — Proportion of Areas under Wheat and Rye. 



Great increases of population have turned into recipi- 
ents of the alien surplus countries that formerly supplied 
others from their abundance. As regards Germany, 
the year 1861 marks the turning-point w T hen exports of 
rye ceased to exceed the imports, and 1875 the same 



174 CENTRAL EUROPE 

turning-point for wheat. The demand which has to be 
met in each country depends not only upon the number 
of the inhabitants, but also upon the habits and standards 
of life. How different these are is particularly clearly 
marked in the case of wheat. Its consumption in Central 
Europe decreases as we go from south to north and from 
west to east. Expressed in kilograms per head of popula- 
tion, it reaches the following annual totals. It stands 
highest in Bulgaria (264), France (246), and Belgium (238). 
A series with smaller demands is formed by Roumania 
(171), Servia (95), Austria-Hungary (116), Switzerland 
(163), and Holland (125). Germany falls far behind, 
with only 79, but it consumes more rye (12 2 kilograms 
per head) and more potatoes. 

The total consumption of each country, resulting from 
these varying averages of demand, is confronted in the 
different cases by very different powers of production, 
and these are liable to vary, according to weather, from 
year to year. Only in the south-eastern countries, 
Bulgaria, Roumania, Servia, and Hungary is there any 
great surplus. The wealth of corn in the Lower Danubian 
countries is the chief basis of their economic position. They 
have vied with one another to make opportune use of their 
natural advantages. Like the centres of the trade along 
the Rhine — Mannheim, Cologne, and Ordingen — Pest 
and the Roumanian ports of Galatz and Braila have 
modelled the organisation of their grain trade upon that 
of America. Between the years 1881 and 1895 — in which 
period the area of its cultivated land increased by 12 per 
cent, and of wheat land by 44 per cent. — Hungary rose 
to the position of one of the greatest centres of the European 
corn trade. In addition to the organisation of the corn 
trade, which in Buda-Pest deals annually with a million 
tons of wheat alone, the position of Hungary in this 
department has been considerably strengthened by the 
extraordinary development of flour-mills. Corn from the 
south of Europe comes into competition with that from 
over-sea, not only in the harbours of the North Sea, but 
also in the river towns of Cologne, Frankfort, and 



ECONOMIC GEOGRAPHY 



J 75 



Mannheim, and German agriculture is hard pressed by 
these intrusive floods of foreign products. This straitened 
position is a direct consequence of increased international 
communications, owing to which every increase of produc- 
tion in some distant zone directly affects the European 
market. The possibility of flooding this market with their 




Fig. 31. — The Sugar Production of the World. 



products has induced countries beyond the ocean to 
enlarge their cultivated areas rapidly and extensively. 
Between 1871 and 1880, the United States, by breaking up 
large stretches of grass-grown virgin soil, doubled their corn- 
lands. The same process followed later in Argentina, and, 
finally, great quantities of Indian wheat flowed into 
Europe and depressed prices to a point at which wheat 



i 7 6 CENTRAL EUROPE 

culture ceased to be remunerative to the German farmer. 
This critical development, however, appears to have 
passed its climax. 

Unfortunately, however, the course of the world's 
advance has raised up other dangers which threaten the 
cultivation of Central European soil. One department of 
its manifold activities, the growing of beet and making of 
sugar, which had been carried to a high point, is directly 
endangered, The manufacture of beet-sugar, protected 
by export bounties in the Central European States, rose 
into importance at the expense of the old cane-sugar from 
tropical and sub-tropical countries, which, at one time, pre- 
vailed throughout the world. In the year 1888 these two 
main sources of the sugar supply were almost equal, each 
producing about 2| millon tons. In 1896-97, however, 
beet-sugar brought into the markets of the world 4,800,000 
tons, and cane-sugar only 2,400,000 tons. This develop- 
ment, attained almost entirely by the exertions of Central 
Europe, is now suddenly threatened with hindrances and 
reverses, owing to the appearance on the scene of the 
United States as a keen competitor. To the old sugar 
districts of Louisiana, Cuba, and Porto Rico, Hawaii 
and the Philippines are now being added, lands well 
adapted to this industry, which was formerly pursued 
in them with success. In a few years the United States 
will be the first sugar-producing country of the world, and 
will be powerful enough to set limits to the sugar trade of 
other places. The regions most threatened by this altera- 
tion of products are the most fertile of Central Germany, 
around Magdeburg, Central Silesia, and Central Bohemia. 

In direct contrast to the sugar-beet, which is con- 
fined to the better sort of soils, and usually promises 
yet further improvement to them through careful tend- 
ance, stands the plebeian potato, which grows every- 
where. It has been particularly valuable in furnishing 
food to the inhabitants of districts where the soil is of 
poor quality and the climate somewhat unkindly. Thus it 
was fitted for attaining to even greater importance in the 
northern and north-western portions of Central Europe 



ECONOMIC GEOGRAPHY 



177 



than maize has attained in the south. The potato 
occupies over 20,000 square miles in Central Europe, 
thus resembling maize both in origin and in extent of 
cultivation. It has not the unlimited capacity of transport 
that belongs to corn ; it is better fitted for consumption 
in places not far from the spot where it grows. Potatoes 
are grown, not exclusively as a food supply, but also as 
the basis of an important industry of brandy (Fig. 33). 




/O % $nc? more m^ffiMi 5 % to 9'A, \ \ 2 '/. fo4v. 

FlG. 32. — Cultivation of Sugar Beet in Central Europe. (After Engelbrecht.) 

The two countries best endowed by nature for the 
preparation of beer are Bavaria and Bohemia. The heart 
of the Bohemian hop country, 50 square miles in extent,, 
lies in the district between Saaz and Leitmeritz — the tract 
which also supplies the best barley in Austria. If we then 
cross the Fichtel Gebirge, we come, in Upper Franconia, 
near Bamberg, upon the equally extensive German hop-gar- 
dens which run along the Main and the Neckar into the Pala- 
tinate and Alsace, and along the Altmuhl to Upper and 
Lower Bavaria. The province of Posen, too, has abun- 



178 



CENTRAL EUROPE 



dant hops, but the main centres of cultivation and sale are 
in Bohemia and Bavaria. Nearly the fourth part, too, of 
Germany's barley grows in Bavaria. Upon these essen- 
tials rests a vast production of beer. The great activity 
of manufacture in these districts corresponds to a high 
rate of consumption (Fig. 34). 

The beer countries of Central Europe alternate with 
wine districts. Measured by superficies, Alsace, Baden, and 




40% encf more 



/O%fo3o°/. 



Fig. 33. — Cultivation of Potatoes in Central Europe. (After Engelbrecht. ) 



Wiirtemberg are the greatest vine-growing districts, con- 
taining together considerably the larger part of the whole 
wine-producing area of Germany, which amounts to 450 
square miles ; but the best flavoured wines grow more to 
the north in the Palatinate, Rhenish Hesse, Nassau, and in 
the Rhine districts along the principal valley of the river, as 
well as along the Nahe, Moselle, and Ahr. Wiirzburg on 
the Main also brings excellent grapes to the vine-press. 
Far more extensive, but, in general, less valuable, are the 
vineyards of Austria, of which the larger part lie in Istria 
and Dalmatia, and only one-sixth in the famous wine 



ECONOMIC GEOGRAPHY 179 

district of Lower Austria, while an area still more 
restricted furnishes the fine varieties belonging to the hot 
valley of the Adige and the neighbouring valleys of the 
Southern Tyrol. The highest of reputations has long 
belonged to the wines of Hungary. But the enchant- 
ing girdle of vineyards along the mountainous border 
of its plains has suffered even more severely than Lower 
Austria from the devastations of the phylloxera. In 1895, 
•only 857 square miles of Hungary's vineyards were 
planted, while 424 lay fallow or cleared out. Roumania 
has extensive vineyards (616 square miles), while 
Mahommedanism has not diminished vine-growing in 
Bulgaria and Servia as it has in Bosnia, where it is 
almost non-existent. The wines of all these countries, 
however, though they occasionally pass into the hands of 
French wine merchants to be mixed with other wine, are 
very far from the perfection which, with care and 
attention, might be assured to the produce of a climate 
singularly favourable to the vine. Here, in the lower 
countries of the Danube, wine is largely drunk by the 
people, but its predominance at their feasts is shared by the 
plum-brandy (slibovitz). Theharvestsof Roumanian, Servian, 
and Bosnian plum plantations are of no less importance in 
the economy of these countries than are the rich orchards 
of fruit to the Southern Tyrol, to the mountain border of 
the Upper Rhine Valley, or to Hungary (Fig. 35). 

Central Europe might thus be divided into zones 
according to the prevailing alcoholic drinks, and the 
civilisation of each of these zones would undeniably have 
some special characteristics. No one can fail to perceive 
that the universal use of wine has had a refining effect 
upon the low strata of the French population, and has 
tended to soften the sharp social gradations which, in 
other places, lead down from wine through beer to 
potato brandy The wine countries hold an enviable 
position ; in them even poverty has a more cheerful air 
than it has in the home of poorer drinks. To Germany 
these benefits have been given in narrower measure. But 

perhaps a blessing lay beneath these scantier endow- 
13 



180 CENTRAL EUROPE 

merits. Upon the poor soil of the colonised land of 
East Germany, between the Scotch firs and the potato 
fields, grew up the powerful race whose fight for freedom 
dragged Germany from the depth of oppression and 
founded a solid centre for the slowly ripening national 
unity. 



<S5> Ch-i^f UrarK&tf m-ct/tirvgr Districts 
^ Jfojo Gardens 

Fig. 34. — Brandy and Beer. 



In Greek art a wreath of ears adorned the brows of 

the goddess who gave to men the nourishing fruit of 

the cornfield. Her name, however, was De- 

Mineral t — Mother Earth. This name bore wit- 

r RODLTCTS 

ness to the living conviction that the creative 
power by which vitality is annually renewed resides 
in the bosom of the earth. The truth of this conviction, 



ECONOMIC GEOGRAPHY 



181 



indeed, goes much deeper than the meaning of the old 
myth. In measuring the possibilities afforded by any 
country to the progress of man, it is not enough to contem- 
plate only the gay and brightly coloured garment of vege- 
tation clothing its surface ; we must penetrate also to the 
deepest and darkest recesses. The treasures that there 




Fig. 35. — Area of Wine Lands. 



lie hidden, not only for the advancement of human labour 
and skill, but also for the securing of human sustenance 
and comfort, are revealed even by the springs that rise 
thence to the light of day. 

Hot springs and mineral springs were prized by a 
vague instinct, akin to a superstitious belief, long before 
they began to be considered by any scientific investiga- 
tion. Nor is this to be regretted. It was in this way 



182 



CENTRAL EUROPE 



that a large body of experience came to be accumulated, 
many facts established, and at least the foundations for 
further advance in knowledge everywhere laid. Thousands 
of persons stream every summer with the fullest confidence 
to springs highly reputed for curative properties, while 
whole districts find a field of profitable and useful activity 
in their baths and medicinal springs. It is of no little im- 
portance to the prosperity of North-West Bohemia that the 
springs of Teplitz, Carlsbad, Franzensbad, Marienbad, 
and many others less important, bring 75,000 visitors 
to spend some weeks there every summer, and cause 
the exportation into all parts of the world of millions of 
bottles of mineral water and many hundred thousand 
pounds of natural salts. Similar centres of resort, formed 
by springs, lie in the Taunus and in several valleys 
of the Carpathians. It is part of the nature of many 
mineral springs, and especially of hot springs, which 
are connected with lines of geological cleavage and dis- 
turbance, to be particularly likely to occur in scenery 
of varied outlines. The fresh air and wooded valleys of 
a mountain range, as well as the pleasantness of the 
situation, generally help in effecting cures. Comparatively 
few mineral springs, those mainly that arise from extensive 
deposits of easily soluble substances lying not far below 
the surface, occur in flat and uniform places. The brine 
springs of the Salzkammergut and of Reichenhall, 
embosomed in delightful Alpine valleys, may be set 
against the salt springs scattered over the great lowland 
of North Germany. 

Such springs often indicate the presence of salt beds, 
that may be worked profitably and satisfy a human need 
which was recognised as urgent by men even in the days 
when they hunted, kept herds, and fished, but which grew 
more pressing as they advanced in agriculture. The 
addition of salt appears to be particularly indispensable to 
a vegetable diet. The expression " Salt and Bread " marks 
the lowest demand for food in an agricultural community. 
The rich endowment of salt beds is therefore an im- 
portant part of Central Europe's natural wealth. Long 



ECONOMIC GEOGRAPHY 183 

before the beginning of historical records, salt was 
obtained from the Salzberg at Hallstatt by the ancient 
Illyrian inhabitants, as it was later by the Celts of the 
Alpine valleys. The innumerable salt springs and in- 
exhaustible salt bed of Transylvania were also unquestion- 
ably known and prized at a very early period. The 
Middle Ages opened up the vast salt bed of the inner and 
outer Carpathian circles, especially at Wieliczka. But 
not until our own century was light thrown upon the 
immense stores of salt hidden beneath the surface of the 
North German lowland. South and Central Germany 
had long contented themselves with salt boiled out of the 
Swabian, Franconian, and Thuringian springs, while in 
the supply of East Germany, not only Wieliczka, but even 
the saltpans of the coast of Portugal competed with 
Thuringia and Luneburg. Only in recent times has the 
question of salt been thoroughly and effectually dealt 
with in North Germany. One boring at Stassfurt shows 
a deposit of rock-salt from 260 feet below the surface 
to 4100 feet ; and the famous boring at Sperenberg 
reaches the rock-salt at a depth of 300 feet, and does 
not come to the end of the vast deposit at a depth of 
5080 feet. In the province of Posen, the vast bed of 
rock-salt at Inowrazlaw supplies the eastern part of the 
kingdom. 

The salt supply of the German Empire not only pro- 
vides so amply for its own population that in Schleswig- 
Holstein alone does British salt enter into competition 
with it ; it also supplies large quantities for export. These 
come principally from the saltworks of Schonebeck and 
Stassfurt in the basin of Magdeburg, whence the Elbe 
carries salt upwards to Bohemia and downwards to 
the sea ; from the sea it goes into Holland and Belgium, 
and considerable quantities are despatched even to British 
India. 

The centre of the German salt industry lies in these 
deposits of the Magdeburg and Halberstadt basins ; which 
have, however, another special value due to the vast 
extent and good preservation of a series of strata lying 



184 



CENTRAL EUROPE 



above the bed of pure rock-salt, and consisting of the salts 
of potash and magnesia, so important to the farmer and 
manufacturer. The industries supplied by these salts are 
incomparably more varied than those founded on metallic 
ores. 

In Central Europe gold is only collected in any 
appreciable quantity in Hungary; the total in 1896 was 




^^ Cos/ fi&s/ns 
W® l/gnrte Bes/ns 
X /ron Ore 



@ Go/Cf <.Z/nc 

O Qu/c/c$/7rer O Copp er 



O <5<s//fero<js ffep'onj 

oSa/r 

® /=>otas.s/c &a/f 



Fig. 36. — A Mineral Map of Central Europe. 



3206 kilograms, of which three-fourths came from 
Transylvania, where the ancient gold diggings have lately 
been brought into a condition of increased productivity 
by German capital and German engineers. But, as re- 
gards the gold production of the world, which amounts 
to 425,000 kilograms, Central Europe does not count 
at all. 

The production of silver touched a higher point. 
Germany set the pattern for the whole world in the 
matter of silver-mining, and keen invention had just 



ECONOMIC GEOGRAPHY 185 

perfected the processes of smelting, when the far greater 
output of the extensive American deposits began to press 
hardly upon German silver mines. That mining for silver 
can still be carried on at all in Germany and yield a 
modest profit, in spite of the fact that the value of silver 
has depreciated by half in the course of forty years, is 
solely due to a high degree of refinement and to strict 
economy of labour. But there are years in which no profit 
at all is gained by the majority of the mines. The silver- 
mining of Germany is now almost entirely confined to 
Saxony. Austria gets silver from the old famed mines of 
Bohemia. The present produce of the once celebrated 
silver mines of Servia and Bosnia is very small, and 
there is no prospect of any higher attainment for Central 
Europe in this branch of mining. 

Upon the yield of copper it is possible to reckon more 
surely. At the present time, indeed, copper is depressed 
owing to the gigantic production of North America, which 
doubled its output, and secured the main profit of the 
unexampled demand that arose with the age of electricity 
for this electrically conductive metal. 

15,000 of the 18,000 tons of copper produced in 
Central Europe come from the Mansfeld works. This is 
much less than the annual demand, which amounts, for 
Central Europe, to about 92,000 tons, and for Germany 
alone to over 70,000. 

There is only one of all the metals in the production 
•of which Central Europe occupies the front rank, and 
that one is zinc. Of the 400,000 tons produced annually 
upon the earth, the German Empire supplies 153,000, 
Belgium 113,000, and Austria 6400. But hardly 7 per 
cent, of the ore dealt with in the smelting works of 
Belgium is native ; German ore preponderates over- 
whelmingly. The principal mining places lie together on 
the Lower Rhine, and again together in Upper Silesia, 
where the three empires meet, and each claims for itself 
a part of the metalliferous district. There is a much 
poorer zinc district in the eastern Alps of Styria and 
Carniola. These provinces hold a particularly important 



1 86 CENTRAL EUROPE 

place in regard to the mines of Central Europe, because 
they contain the only large quicksilver mine, at Idria. 
(5600 kilograms). 

Far more important to the economic position of 
Central Europe, however, is the production of iron, and 
full advantage has been taken of all the great improve- 
ments recently made in the processes of smelting. One 
of these improvements in particular has been of decisive- 
value, the extraction of phosphorus from the iron by 
means of the Thomas process, which came into use in 
1878. A great part of the iron ore available has only 
attained its full value since the application of this treat- 
ment. This is specially true of Germany's largest deposits, 
the extensive iron oolites, — the so-called " minette " of the 
Lorraine plateau, on both sides of the Moselle. Here 
between Nancy and Luxemburg lies the largest ironstone 
district of Central Europe. Of the three Powers sharing 
this domain, France annually brings to the surface, in 
the department of Meurthe-et-Moselle, above three million 
tons, and German Lorraine and Luxemburg each above 
five million tons in the year : more, that is, than is raised 
in the whole of the remaining territory of the German 
customs union. Notwithstanding the difficulty of bring- 
ing suitable fuel (coke) from the Rhine district and 
Belgium, German Lorraine and Luxemburg, although 
they export a large part of their ore to Belgium, France 
and the districts of the Saar and Ruhr, have also a con- 
siderable output of pig-iron. Of the remaining beds of 
iron scattered through Germany, those of Nassau and 
others in the north-west of the Hartz Mountains, between 
the rivers Ocker and Leine, are the most important. 

But no single point of the German Empire can com- 
pare, as to quantity and quality of iron ore, with that 
vast Austrian storehouse, the famous metalliferous moun- 
tain of Eisenerz in Styria, on the slope of which 300,000 
tons of excellent siderite are annually dug, in open 
workings, from seventeen terraces cut out of a stratum 
200 to 400 feet deep. This bed is a link in the chain 
of iron deposits that may be followed for a long distance 



ECONOMIC GEOGRAPHY 187 

through the Eastern Alps. Next to Styria, Bohemia, 
especially the old sedimentary basin of the interior, 
furnishes the largest provision of iron to be found in the 
Austrian half of the empire. Hungary falls but little 
behind. Of the mineral treasures of Upper Hungary 
the iron alone appears to have remained up to the 
present time inexhaustible. It supplies not only the 
works at Salgo Taryan, but also those of Moravia at 
Witkowitz. The greatest Hungarian ironworks, however, 
are in Transylvania, at Vajda Hunyad, south of the 
Marosh. A suspension railway passing over many valley 
gorges brings the abundant ore, rich in manganese 
and free from phosphorus and sulphur, from Gyalar, 
and also the charcoal for smelting it. These works only 
make pig-iron, which is sent away to other centres. 

These productive iron beds of the Danubian monarchy 
are now beginning to find competition in the great beds 
at Varesh in Bosnia, which lie 4000 feet above the sea- 
level. 

Thus, wherever hard rock forms the surface of the 
land, scarcely any part of Central Europe is entirely 
without iron ore. The finest beds, however, do not 
coincide with those of fossil fuels, and the working of iron 
is more closely bound up with the presence of fuel 
than with that of ore. Even where the ore is rich 
it pays better to take it to the coal than to bring the 
coal to it ; and that although improved processes have 
sensibly diminished the consumption of coal. If coke 
has to be brought from a distance, the later stages of 
iron manufacture can only be carried on at a profit in 
the immediate neighbourhood of the iron bed, if the final 
operations can be made to follow directly upon the first, 
melting. 

The importance of coal and its superiority to other 
fuels rest upon its combination of high heating capacity 
with smallness of bulk and weight. These advantages 
are especially valuable when the object is to produce 
heat to be transformed, through the agency of steam, 
into mechanical energy for the service of man. Every 



188 CENTRAL EUROPE 

step which has tended to establish the superiority in 
manufacture on a large scale of steam-power to human 
strength and skill, has also tended to crowd together 
the heavier industrial processes upon those lands whose 
surface covers deposits of fossilised fuel. But coal is 
not only a means of labour ; because it is this, it is 
also a commercial commodity, and that country which 
can most easily distribute to others its surplus coal 
gains a commercial advantage. England exports cheaply 
because she weights the merchant ships that carry her 
manufactured products with coal instead of with ballast ; 
she imports cheaply because her ships carry coal to the 
foreign ports whose products they come to fetch. 

It is important, therefore, not only to the success of 
industrial works, but also to the mercantile position of 
Central Europe, that its northern portion, Belgium and 
North Germany, forms one of the richest coal districts of 
the world. To these countries belongs the principal share 
in the belt of coal deposits that accompanies the outer 
border of the Mittel Gebirge. Along the northern boun- 
dary of the Ardennes and the Lower Rhine plateau the 
coal measures continue from Belgium to the basin of Aix 
and the Ruhr district. Following the border of the 
mountains, we come, in the mountains of the Weser, to 
the smaller and newer beds of Hanover. The outer 
edge of the Bohemian group is encircled by the deposits 
of Saxony, and of Lower Silesia at Waldenburg. A 
particularly rich coalfield stretches from the eastern end 
of the Sudetic Mountains across Moravia and Austrian 
Silesia through Prussian Upper Silesia to Russia and 
Galicia. In the interior of the Mittel Gebirge are two 
districts that have extensive coal deposits : Bohemia, 
which, besides sharing in the Waldenburg bed, includes 
on the west within its borders considerable deposits of 
its own, between Pilsen and Bushterad, and the far richer 
district of the Saar, where the boundaries of Rhenish 
Prussia, the Palatinate, and Alsace-Lorraine meet. The 
centre of production lies at Saarbriicken. With its army 
of half a million workers and its total yearly output of 



ECONOMIC GEOGRAPHY 189 

almost 120 millions of tons, Central Europe takes the 
third place after Great Britain and the United States 
among the coal-producing divisions of the world. 

Important, however, as its treasures of coal must 
long be, their economic value is determined not exclu- 
sively by the quantity and quality of the coal ; much also 
depends upon geographical position ; upon whether the 
coal-beds occur in the immediate neighbourhood of other 
raw material for the establishment of large works, and 
whether, on the other hand, a large market for the pro- 
duct of such works lies near, or at least within reach of 
cheap transport. In both these respects most of the coal- 
fields of Central Europe are more unfavourably situated 
than those of Great Britain, for except in Belgium and in 
Westphalia, they all lie at a distance from the sea. The 
coalfields of the German Empire are dispersed into the 
farthest corners of its domain, so near the boundaries that 
a part of the strata sometimes extend into foreign terri- 
tory. The central parts of North Germany have no other 
coal measures at command than the modest ones of 
Saxony. 

The drawback of this want of concentration in the 
position of the German beds of hard coal is mitigated, 
however, by one great fact, the existence of the most 
extensive beds of lignite on the Continent. Those of the 
Brunswick and Magdeburg zone, and of the bay of the 
lowlands between Halle and Leipzig, assure an invaluable 
support to the great agricultural and chemical under- 
takings of the productive countries along the middle 
Elbe. Their southerly districts, and the manufactures of 
Dresden in particular, are supplied by the large quantities 
brought down the river from the lignite district of Bohemia. 
The foreland of the Alps possesses deposits of value in 
Upper Austria ; so does the interior of the mountains in 
Styria, Carinthia, and Carniola. In the case of Hungary, 
too, the place of the old coal measures is supplied by 
later formations : on the one hand by the liassic beds 
at Funfkirchen and the Banat, and on the other hand 
by the Tertiary coal on the border of the great lowland, 



i 9 o CENTRAL EUROPE 

and in the Petrosheny valley at the far south-western 
corner of Transylvania. 

The outer circle of the Carpathians from Galicia to 
Roumania is poor in solid fossil fuels. These lands, how- 
ever, have a compensation, for in them are to be found the 
only mineral oil-springs of any value in Central Europe. 
From the Poprad to the Pruth dark natural oil appears 
at many points between the strata of the Carpathian rock, 
and borings carried out on the Canadian system to a 
depth of 2000 feet have in some places drawn vast foun- 
tains of the valuable fluid from the great underground 
reservoirs. The most productive wells of petroleum lie 
in the district of the Dniester, around Drohobycz and 
Boryslaw. In the same neighbourhood is found the 
greatest quantity of mineral wax (ozokerit). Roumania 
has also opened numerous oilpits. 

Besides the mineral wealth of various kinds gained by 
subterranean mining, Central Europe possesses a number 
of useful stones which are quarried, and of which the 
unequal distribution necessitates transport. The freestone 
and marble columns of cathedrals, the slated and tiled 
roofs of towns, the materials that pave their streets and 
squares, the vast quantities of lime and cement used in 
their buildings, all tell of the country's wealth in every 
kind of building material,' and of the labour devoted by 
generations to making it useful both at home and in far 
countries. Without attempting to dive into the whirl- 
pool of these unceasing movements, we may just note at 
this point that some of the substances drawn from the 
earth of Central Europe possess a rarity that brings them 
into international commerce, and causes them to travel to 
the very Antipodes. This is the case not only with the 
oldest product that was exported from German shores — the 
amber, that is to say, of the Samland — but also with the 
lithographic stone of Solnhofen, a well-stratified lime- 
stone, superior in fineness and evenness of grain to any 
other in the world. These two substances represent 
widely differing periods of civilisation. Remote ages 
took pleasure in the brightness and transparency of the 



ECONOMIC GEOGRAPHY 191 

gum washed out by the waves from the blue earth of the 
steep shore and cast at the feet of man, a ready-made 
ornament, but the Solnhofen stone could be prized only 
by a community that had attained a high state of civilisa- 
tion. Not what a substance is by nature, but what is made 
of it by man fixes the value of it. It is time to pass on 
from the natural foundations of economic life to the active 
and continuous labours whereby that life is perfected. 

It is only in the south-eastern countries of Central 
Europe that primitive methods of production (agricul- 
ture, cattle-breeding, forestry, and fishing) 

,.' ... & ' J ' s/ Human 

still maintain a marked preponderance over T 

r r Industry. 

other occupations (in Hungary 74, and in 
Austria 62 per cent.). In Switzerland, on the other hand, 
the position among the industries of the country held 
by such employments is only relatively superior, 42 per 
cent, as compared with 36 per cent, of manufacture 
and 13 per cent, of commerce. In Germany and Prussia 
agricultural production and trade have come into equili- 
brium, each employing 40 per cent, of the population ; so 
they have in Holland, where each accounts for 32 per 
cent. ; while in Saxony manufacture (60 per cent.) forms 
the main basis of economic life. Here agriculture and 
kindred employments fall quite into the background, and 
account for only 18 per cent, of the people's working 
powers. This is a lower proportion than even in Belgium, 
where manufacture outstrips agriculture not only in the 
value of the products, but also in the number of hands 
employed, though statistics are wanting to furnish a 
clearer view of their relation. To journey through 
Central Europe from the mouth of the Danube to the 
Scheldt is to take a historical survey of several past cen- 
turies coexistent in the present day. Towards the end of 
the nineteenth century the transformation of Central Europe 
from a region under primitive conditions into an arena 
of eager industrial activity has been visibly accelerated. 

This transition indeed is not equally perceptible in all 
parts even of the most advanced countries. There are 
places in which the natural powers are inadequate to the 



192 CENTRAL EUROPE 

demands of human labour. The wind itself, though the 
atmospheric tendency to equilibrium causes it to blow for 
long distances over wide stretches of country, is not 
everywhere strong enough and constant enough to be 
counted upon as a regular and trustworthy fellow-worker. 

Unlike the shoreless streams of the air, rivers pass 
through the countries only as narrow bands of living 
power. And in regard to their employment the claims 
of productive industry and of traffic used to be irrecon- 
cilably opposed to each other. Navigation demanded 
the freedom of rivers, and industry desired to close them 
with dams. In general the interests of inter-communi- 
cation won the day upon easily navigable rivers, and 
industry was only left unhindered to place her works, 
like beads upon separated strings, along the upper water- 
courses where the fall was rapid. The mountain valleys 
thus came to be rilled with water-driven works, the small 
and divided power being decidedly favourable to marked 
subdivision of trades. But on large rivers new undertak- 
ings for employing water-power in the service of modern 
industry can be set up but rarely, and only when there 
is some very special natural fitness. Such was the case 
with the strong rapids at the town of Schaffhausen, two 
miles above the Falls of the Rhine. The old water- 
works, erected in i860, soon raised the town to a centre 
of varied industries, but their progress only attained full 
development after the introduction of electricity for the 
conveyance of power. A force of 2400 horse-power is 
now available in the town, and one of 4000 in the 
aluminium works at the Rhine fall. The civilised 
countries of Central Europe are rivalling one another in 
the haste with which they are setting water-power to work, 
and providing electricity for the lighting of towns, for 
railways, for machinery, and for electro-chemical works. 

The Alpine countries, above all, are making use of 
the new discovery that in their thundering torrents, their 
rivers, well supplied even in summer from the melting 
glaciers, and their vast still lakes, they possess not only an 
adornment of the landscape but also an inexhaustible 



ECONOMIC GEOGRAPHY 193 

storehouse of mechanical energy. Tyrol and the Vorarl- 
berg are very active, but Switzerland holds the first place. 
The works of Geneva — which will soon be able to put 
12,000 horse-power at the disposal of the many trades 
belonging to a varied and highly refined stage of manu- 
facture — and those of Yverdon — which derive 1800 horse- 
power from the Orbe, and use it to provide twenty 
different places with light and energy — are all strongly 
marked by the characteristic feature of power produced 
in this way, by the possibility, that is to say, of far- 
reaching division. 

A particularly promising centre of industry will arise 
at the Iron Gates at Orshova. Only difficulty with Hun- 
gary has thus far delayed the utilisation of the river power 
upon the Servian shore, where an enterprising engineer 
from Brunswick has made a plan for obtaining 20,000 
horse-power, under unusually favourable conditions. 

In all this utilisation of the natural force of water, the 
mountain lands of the Alpine system must in the course 
of nature take the lion's share. Even in Germany these 
sources of power are much poorer. Only its Alpine 
foreland, with the rivers of the mountain country, has 
any valuable endowment of water-power. The rapids of 
the Rhine at Rheinfelden, and the rivers Lech and Isar 
offer power on a large scale suitable for the establishment 
of electrical works. Munich alone among the great 
towns of this continent has an opportunity offered it, 
by the delightful fall of the foaming Isar, of developing 
mighty electric powers. Everything offered by the rivers 
of the Mittel Gebirge falls very far behind. Even the 
Lauffen rapids (at Heilbronn) are famed in the history 
of electrical distribution only because from them the first 
attempt was made to apply electric power at a distance, 
the power supplied by the falls of the Neckar being used 
in 1 89 1 for an exhibition installation at Frankfort on 
the Main, no miles away. Projects for making rivers 
with less fall available by means of large dams are not 
wanting, although the difficulties of such undertakings 
threaten to outweigh the advantages. 



i 9 4 CENTRAL EUROPE 

The northern part of Central Europe must try to 
console itself by remembering that it is richer in another 
source of power : in treasures of fossil fuel. In the 
present day coal still has the first voice in deciding the 
local distribution and practical shape of industrial life. 
And while the possibility of transmitting the electric 
current to a distance lessens the dependence of industry 
upon the spot where the power is generated, fuel is 
susceptible of no such cheap and easy removal. 

The limits of a coalfield are therefore in general but 
little smaller than those of the trade directly called into 
existence by it, and of the denser population to which 
this in turn gives rise. Typical examples of these fields 
of intensified labour are furnished by the following 
industrial districts of Central Europe : that of Hainault 
(Mons-Charleroi) ; that of Liege and Aix ; that of the 
Lower Rhine, Wupper, and Ruhr ; the basin of the Saar ; 
the district of Chemnitz and Zwickau ; that of Upper 
Silesia, and that of Bohemia. Certain characteristics are 
common to all of them, and impress themselves irresistibly 
upon the general aspect and upon social life, in spite of 
the great natural differences existing between the fertile 
valley of the Meuse, the intersected tablelands at the 
northern foot of the Erz Gebirge, and the melancholy 
woods of Scotch fir that border the sluggish watercourses 
of the Russian frontier. 

The most striking feature is everywhere a rapidly 
advancing increase in population, arising since the middle 
of the nineteenth century,. and filling whole districts so 
thickly that in some places there are iooo and even 2000 
inhabitants to the square mile. In places where for- 
merly stood little hamlets of only a few houses great 
townships of 20,000 to 50,000 inhabitants have sprung 
up like mushrooms within the last two or three de- 
cades. Real towns, however, they are not. Their 
irregular boundaries, the absence of enclosure, their 
casual unplanned growth, all show a lack of comple- 
tion, and a glance suffices to tell us with what difficulty 
this conglomeration of mines, foundries, factories, and 



ECONOMIC GEOGRAPHY 195 

worker-colonies manages to meet the sudden onset of so 
many varying demands. A single generation has to 
undertake the supply of water, canals, lighting, paving, 
schools, and churches, things which in a quietly growing 
town arise gradually, and of which the cost is spread 
easily over a course of centuries. Industry itself shows 
kindred features in these regions. Large concerns and 
great capitals dominate ; regiments of workers obey either 
joint-stock companies or industrial kings. Some of the 
latter are the old landlords, whose slackened sails re- 
ceived a fresh wind from the sudden rise of industrialism, 
while some have worked their way up from among the 
heroes of labour. 

As in the methods of industry, so in the choice of its 
field, a certain similarity prevails in all the great industrial 
districts. A widely ramifying iron trade everywhere 
occupies the first place, and supplies every branch of 
life, of labour, and of communication, with tools, machines, 
railways, and conveyance, while it furnishes weapons and 
defensive material for the national protection. To this 
trade, which attains in Central Europe the highest point 
of diversity and of efficiency, belong the largest workshops 
of the Continent. The most extreme example — which, 
however, is but an example — of the development of 
manufacture on a large scale in the coalfields of Central 
Europe, is furnished by the Krupp cast-steel works at 
Essen, where 23,000 workpeople are employed, and 
which provide a livelihood for 80,000 souls. 

In Upper Silesia, as in Belgium, zincworks and lead- 
works have been placed near to ironworks. Chemical 
works, too, are frequently established near to the iron 
forges, for ever since so much care has been devoted to 
obtaining and utilising the secondary products of the smelt- 
ing process, they have been very closely connected with 
them. Among the various products of chemical industry 
in which Germany has won a leading position, aniline 
dyes, obtained from coal tar, take a high place. The use 
of vegetable and metallic dyes has been greatly restricted 
by these. Not infrequently these coal-tar colours are 
14 



196 CENTRAL EUROPE 

successfully applied in the immediate vicinity of the land 
from which their raw material was dug. In many coal- 
fields a considerable manufacture of textiles has arisen, 
generally carried on, however, a little outside the sooty 
atmosphere of the furnaces. Nearly all the conspicuous 
trade centres have their textile satellites. 

The coal-beds of Central Europe, including the larger 
lignite deposits, may thus be indicated as the main seats 
of its labour and manufacture, far surpassing in number 
and in the value of their products those works which are 
dependent upon water-power. Trade, however, depends 
not only upon the powers afforded by nature in the way 
of moving water or heat production ; it depends in no 
less a degree upon the accumulation of the various raw 
materials destined to undergo changes and improvements. 
For this reason other trade centres adjoin themselves 
preferably to large nuclei of traffic. Large towns are the 
foci in which are gathered together the economic 
treasures and powers of a wide district ; while, on the 
other hand, the demands arising from the needs of a 
whole community also concentrate themselves, and are 
in a position to call forth the echo of labours answering 
to their wants. Because of these things, and of the 
accumulation of raw material even from very remote 
places, an enormous variety of industrial activities are 
set free, the variety of which is but very imperfectly 
apprehended, not only by chance visitors to a great town,, 
whose impressions are naturally hasty and superficial, 
but also by the majority of the townspeople themselves. 
The particular merit of urban industry lies less in the 
bulk of material dealt with than in extreme finish and 
refinement of its execution, and in the combination of 
products arising from several simple processes into 
complex products, which both correspond to the heightened 
wants and satisfy the tastes of a civilised society. It is a 
special privilege of cities to be centres of a nation's 
intellectual life ; all the various branches of commerce 
directly subserving it reach their highest perfection in 
towns, and some of them assume international importance.. 



ECONOMIC GEOGRAPHY 197 

In the immeasurable empire of productive labour, every 
city chooses its different province, according to external 
circumstances or to the tastes and aptitudes of its in- 
habitants. This choice decides the individual character — 
one might almost say, the personality — of the city. If 
we consider that Central Europe contains two metropolises 
each having more than one and a half million inhabitants, 
and that in the fifty-three towns whose population ex- 
ceeds 100,000 there are more than 15,000,000 persons, 
or a ninth part of all the inhabitants of the region, while 
that of these fifty-three towns only ten, and those some 
of the less important, have arisen in or very near to coal- 
fields, we shall admit that the development of urban life, 
in the great commercial centres is a considerable and 
direct cause of industrial activity. 

Not all industries, however, arise from positive natural 
aptitudes. Not wealth alone, but also poverty is a cause 
of production. It is so with the domestic industries in the 
mountains of Central Europe, the weaving villages of the 
Rhon and the Sudetic Mountains, the bobbin-lace and 
embroideries of the Erz Gebirge, Appenzell, and Flanders, 
the toy manufacture of Thuringia, the watchmaking of 
the Black Forest and the Jura, and the wire-drawing 
among the Slovaks of Upper Hungary. However 
different the state of these industries, some of which are 
happily flourishing, while others are hopelessly decay- 
ing — the majority do but very barely maintain their 
existence — they all have this in common : that they owe 
their growth not to the stimulus of any valuable natural 
gift which invited utilisation, but to that lack of natural 
resources in absolutely poor or relatively over-populated 
parts by which an industrial people, satisfied with 
moderate returns for labour, were driven to seek some 
occupation, and to attain a high degree of skill and 
dexterity in it. There is a future only for such branches 
as can reap some advantage from the progress around 
them, and adopting the services of machinery and of the 
modern supply of power can restrict handwork to those 
departments which demand intelligent skill or artistic 



198 CENTRAL EUROPE 

sense of beauty, into which mechanical power can never 
force its conquering way. The materials wrought up by 
these domestic industries are generally of small value, 
and obtained in the immediate neighbourhood of the 
worker ; but sometimes an industry will maintain itself 
out of the beaten tracks of larger trades, drawing its 
material from long distances, sending out its products 
into all parts of the world, and having nothing on the 
spot but intelligence, training, and industry. One instance 
may suffice. At Ruhla, in the Thuringian Forest, there is 
a flourishing manufacture of pipes and cigar-holders ; it 
imports meerschaum from Asia Minor, amber from the 
Baltic, cherry wood from Lower Austria, brass plates 
from Augsburg, rosin from India, cedar wood from 
the Lebanon, and birch wood from Sweden. 

This is a triumph of labour, and we may well be 
set thinking, when we find a manufacture like this, far 
inland, with so little material foundation and no support 
from the forces of nature, coming into rank with those 
that draw their raw material from abroad. The larger 
branches of industry in Central Europe do so on a much 
larger scale. In regard to the metal trades this fact has 
already been pointed out. Not only tin, of w T hich prac- 
tically none exists in Central Europe, and copper are 
imported in very great quantities, but in the interchange 
of iron ores and pig iron the imports far outweigh the 
exported surplus. Particularly varied are the materials 
imported to serve the needs of the great chemical 
industries. In trades that deal with fats and oil the 
old native materials have been superseded in a striking 
degree by tropical products. Textile industries, too, 
make a large demand upon imported material, and that 
even in departments in which Central Europe used 
formerly to be self-sufficing. Its trade in flax, hemp, 
and wool, which about the middle of the century was 
centrifugal in distribution, has become completely cen- 
tripetal, and seeks supplies from great distances. The 
production of silk, originally foreign to this region, has 
in course of time undergone displacement A zone of 



ECONOMIC GEOGRAPHY 199 

silkworm farming, silk production, and silk spinning has 
arisen in Southern Europe. The industry has spread 
from Italy into the Southern Tyrol and Ticino ; and to 
the north of this zone begins a belt of silk weaving, 
widest in France, but continuing into Switzerland and 
along the Lower Rhine. Far more general in its extent 
and more important, as occupying a far larger part of 
the population, is the manufacture of cotton, all the raw 
material of which comes from over-seas. Between 
400,000 and 450,000 tons of raw cotton are imported 
in the course of a year by Central Europe. The prin- 
cipal seats of this trade are in the Rhine districts — North 
Switzerland, Upper Alsace, and the industrial regions of the 
Lower Rhine — and, farther to the east, in Wurtemberg, 
Saxony, and North Bohemia. A companion industry, 
likewise resting entirely upon imported raw material, and 
rising rapidly into importance, is the manufacture of jute. 
The greatest change which has arisen during the last 
decades in the relation of the progressive countries of 
Central Europe to the rest of the world lies in the 
unusually great increase in the importation of foreign 
raw materials. This is too great to be explained merely 
by the concurrent increase of population. Far rather 
does it mainly indicate a rise in demands on life, in the 
standard of living, and in the material progress of the 
nations. Central Europe has become more dependent 
upon foreign countries, not only for food, but also for 
the supply of other most important necessaries of life. 
It goes without saying that this relation to foreign 
countries beyond the sea cannot consist only in a one- 
sided importation of their products, but that there must 
be a corresponding increase in the exportation of Central 
European manufactures. The greater part of Central 
Europe has already reached that phase of development 
in which agriculture no longer occupies the first place 
as a basis of the social life of the people, but has been 
in great part superseded by industrial activities which 
must necessarily seek a market for their products beyond 
their own borders. 



200 CENTRAL EUROPE 

The great impulse received by German industrialism 
in the last fifteen years is a matter of common knowledge. 
Between the census of occupations taken in 1882 and 
that taken in 1895 the number of persons engaged 
in industrial callings had increased by 29^ per cent. 
During that time the total imports of the Empire — if we 
take the average of the three years from 1882-84 and 
the three from 1895-97, so as to exclude temporary 
variations — had risen 41 J per cent., though the importa- 
tion of foreign manufactured goods had diminished by 
12 per cent. But the export of German manufactured 
goods, too, shows a slight decrease in value, from 2304 
to 2262 million marks, or 2 per cent.! Surprising 
as this result may appear, it places beyond all question 
the fact that the recent increase in German .manufacture 
is absorbed in great measure by the increased consump- 
tion of the German people, among whom not only the 
actual numbers, but also the standards of life have risen 
considerably. If this is so, the balance of imports over 
exports in the German Empire must tend more and more 
towards a preponderance of imports. And this is actually 
the case. While in 1882—84 the exports were still equal 
to 97 per cent, of the imports, in 1895—97 they equalled 
only 80 per cent. Germany shares this condition with 
many countries of high economic development. In those 
of Central Europe the annual sums of import and export 
(precious metals excluded), stated in millions of the cur- 
rent coin of each country, were, according to the latest 
figures (1900), as follows: — 





Imports. 


Exports. 


German Customs Union . 


. 5765.6 


461 1.4 (marks) 


Holland .... 


. 1950.2 


1690.9 (gulden) 


Belgium . . - . 


. 2215.8 


1922.9 (francs) 






836.1 (francs) 



This would formerly have been esteemed an "unfavour- 
able " balance. But no one in the present day will 
consider that the annual economic totals of these countries 
indicate a worse position than that of Austria-Hungary, 
Servia, or Bulgaria, in all of which countries the exports 



ECONOMIC GEOGRAPHY 201 

exceed the imports. The revenue of a country is power- 
fully affected by other items, especially the return upon 
capital invested abroad, the freights of internal and 
external commerce, and the sums set in motion by travel. 

The smaller the states of Central Europe the more 
surely are their population destined to follow in their turn 
the path which England in particular has trodden with so 
much success, and to employ their capital not solely in 
the overcrowded labour market of their own homes, but 
also to make use of a considerable part of it in foreign 
and trans-oceanic countries. 

We should greatly underrate the economic importance 
of Central Europe if we held our attention concentrated 
upon what goes on within its boundaries. It is true that, 
of all its states, Holland alone has colonial possessions 
bringing in really abundant profits ; the future must 
decide the results of the efforts being made in this 
direction by Belgium and Germany. Far greater is the 
work carried on under foreign rule by the enterprising 
financiers and pioneers of civilisation belonging to these 
two countries and to Switzerland, in plantations, mines, 
factories, railway building, and merchant shipping. 

To try and show this in detail would be to circum- 
navigate the earth. It lies in the nature of things that 
this wholesale activity cannot be brought under exact 
statistical statement. The desire of gaining some approxi- 
mate notion of it may be satisfied by a glance at the 
trustworthy figures, lately made public, that deal with the 
foreign business activities of one country, the German 
Empire. The possessions of its inhabitants in foreign 
funds are given at twelve and a half milliards of marks. 
The annual freight dues upon sea-carriage exceed 200 
millions. The total amount of other capital employed 
beyond the national boundaries in various undertakings 
cannot be less than seven milliards of marks. There 
is hardly a country of the world where capital and 
intelligence from Central Europe do not take a large 
share in industrial competition. A superficial glance at 
the renewed activity and eager competition prevailing 



202 CENTRAL EUROPE 

among the struggling and progressive nations of the 
world, and at the spread of this competition into every 
corner of available land, may well give the impression 
that differences between nations and the dangers arising 
from such differences are becoming more acute. Pro- 
bably the precise contrary is true. Every new milliard 
which any country takes into a foreign part strengthens 
the interests of peaceful labour as against the violent 
inclinations by which politicians are so apt to be led 
astray. The closer and firmer the links in which nations 
are drawn together by common business relations, the 
more earnestly does sound and growing enlightenment 
insist upon the first condition of successful labour — 
peace. 

Note o?i Authorities. — The natural conditions, historical development, 
and present physiognomy of native vegetation are set forth in handbooks 
of botanical geography by Grisebach, Drude, Warming, and Schimper. 
An excellent general view of plants under cultivation is presented by 
Theodore H. Engelbrecht's Die Landbauzonen aer aussertropischen 
Lander, 3 vols., 1899, a work rich in statistical details. A map of 
viticulture has been drawn by W. Hamm, the author of the learned 
Weinbuch, third edition, 1S86. 

Maps of the mineral treasures are to be found in the Physicalisch- 
Statistischen Atlas des Deutschen Reiches, by R. Andree and O. Peschel, 
1878 ; and in the corresponding atlas of Austria-Hungary, by J. Cha- 
vanne, 1887 



CHAPTER XII 

THE ALPINE COUNTRIES 

The mighty war-tempests of the seventeenth and eighteenth 

centuries rolled past the Swiss Federation without hurting 

it. The mountaineers could only satisfy 

... ... . . , . . i - Switzerland. 

their warlike impulses by taking voluntary 

service as mercenaries, generally under the French flag. 
When, after the time of Napoleon, the European states 
settled again into equilibrium, the quietest spot was once 
more assigned to Switzerland. The great Powers guaran- 
teed her neutrality. Switzerland did well, however, not 
to let her independence rest entirely upon the will of 
her neighbours, but to draw her twenty-two cantons (now 
twenty-five) into closer union > and to fit herself for defence- 
She is not compelled, however, to make any very great 
exertions for her own security, but can devote her strength, 
unthreatened and undisturbed, to developing the aptitudes 
of her people. Her internal commotions are no more 
than teacup storms ; the nationalities united within her 
borders — 71 per cent, of Germans and 22 per cent, of 
French — offer to all Central Europe a fine example of how 
to dwell together in unity. 

In all the works of peace Switzerland takes a high 
place. In public education, in scientific investigation of 
their lovely country's nature, in the representation of its 
surface by maps of extraordinary excellence, in the con- 
flict with the wild forces of nature by ruling the paths of 
avalanches and the beds of torrents, in the planting of de- 
solate mountain slopes, and the regulation of neglected 
rivers, the Swiss are ahead of all their neighbours. 
Switzerland is a rich country, not by nature, but entirely 
owing to the diligence of its inhabitants. It possesses no 



2o 4 CENTRAL EUROPE 

great quantity of ores or of fuel. Salt alone is yielded 
abundantly by the works of Bex, Rheinfelden, and Schwei- 
zerhall. Of the total surface of the country (16,000 square 
miles) fully 28 per cent, is rendered useless to man by 
watercourses, glaciers, rocks, and detritus ; while even in 
the remaining parts the climate and the soil prevent 
labour from obtaining a full return. Of the 72 per cent, 
of the country reckoned as a productive area, 20 per cent, is 
occupied by forests, and certainly more than 30 by meadows 
and pastures, scarcely 20 by arable land, orchards, and 
gardens. The activities of Swiss farming have for many 
years past been more and more directed towards the rear- 
ing of cattle, while agriculture has been less and less fol- 
lowed. The harvests of the country, therefore, do not 
nearly supply the demands of the population and of the 
vast numbers of foreign visitors. Although the magni- 
ficent cattle that give life to all the high pastures of the 
Alps, and especially to the meadows of Appenzell, the 
Grisons, the three original cantons, and Fribourg, furnish 
exports of milk-produce to the value of 70,000,000 francs, 
yet these are counterbalanced by imports of food to four 
or five times this value, consisting chiefly of agricultural 
produce, meat, and also alcoholic beverages. Thus that 
portion of the country's economic power which has any 
external effect runs principally in industrial channels. 
Manufactures occupy almost the same number of the 
population as agriculture. The lack of coal, which has to 
be imported from the Saar district, is in some measure 
compensated by the abundance of water-power. Water- 
power gives its support to the cotton trade of North-East 
Switzerland. But even in the textile industries, the lace 
and embroidery of Appenzell and St. Gallen, and the silk 
trade of Basle and Zurich, the raw material of which comes 
by way of the St. Gothard from Italy, the principal factor 
of success is that diligence and skill on the part of the 
workers which attain their fullest triumph in the watch 
manufacture of the Jura and the jewellery work of Geneva. 
The textile industries of Switzerland contribute more than 
415,000,000 francs to the exports of the country, and watch- 



THE ALPINE COUNTRIES 205 

making 123 ,000,000 francs. The total, however, remains far 
behind that of the imports. Among the contributory sources 
of wealth by which this large commercial deficit is counter- 
balanced in a country whose prosperity is notorious, must 
be reckoned the vast consumption arising from the influx 
of foreigners. 

The natural beauties of a high mountain country, so 
despised in former times, are now so much esteemed, 
that they assume the value of an indestructible capital, 
from which the industrious inhabitants are always busy 
in drawing the interest. ' 

If we were obliged to name a centre of this busy 
life, we should find our task difficult. Not only the 
federal constitution of Switzerland, but even the nature 
of the country impedes the pulsation of all its life from 
one heart, and tends rather to the development of several 
independent and competing centres of intellectual and 
material exchange. The position of these is evidently 
fixed by the attractive power of the roads that connect 
the country with the exterior world. Geneva, at the 
lower end of Lake Leman, where the Rhone flows out 
on its way to the southern gate of the Jura, is beyond 
question the capital of French Switzerland. Judging 
by situation, the corresponding place in North Switzer- 
land would be Constance, which indeed strove in the 
Middle Ages towards a leading position. But after the 
Federation separated from the Empire, the interests of 
Constance became antagonistic to those of Switzerland, 
and it consequently lost not only its territory, but also the 
beginnings of commercial prosperity. Switzerland found 
compensation for the lack of this place by stretching 
beyond her natural boundaries on the one hand to 
Schaffhausen across the Rhine, and on the other to 
Basle beyond the Jura. The former gives a passage into 
Swabia, while Basle commands the communications to 
the valley of the Upper Rhine and into Burgundy. But 
the northern outlets of Switzerland, so different from 
the simple opening of the Rhone, have always tended to 
throw the northern centre of Switzerland somewhat back- 



2 o6 CENTRAL EUROPE 

wards towards a gathering place in the interior. The old 
Romans chose Vindonissa on the Aar, near to the junction 
of the Reuss and the Limmat at the foot of the heights 
which carry the Habsburg. This convergence of valleys 
promised more than it fulfilled. It leads on the north, 
not to an open exit, but to the broad southern slope 
of the Black Forest. These mountains, closing the valley 
road of Central Switzerland, largely conduced towards 
the independence of Switzerland by favouring its separa- 
tion from Germany. In ancient times they must have 
checked the development of traffic* at Vindonissa. Modern 
times have succeeded better in the choice of Zurich, 
more to the east, as the centre of traffic. Here 
the natural road from Geneva to Berne, crossing the 
outflow of the Lake of Zurich, meets not only the line 
from Chur to Basle, but also the St. Gothard line. Their 
junction and the division of the traffic towards the towns 
on the Lake of Constance, towards Schaffhausen and 
towards Basle, which takes place here, secure to Zurich, 
which is fast becoming the chief of Switzerland's large 
towns, an inalienable superiority over Berne. The 
central position of Berne marks the proper seat of the 
Federal Government. As a centre of traffic it would not 
be equal to Zurich, even if a tunnel through the Bernese 
Oberland (Lotschen Pass) should succeed in connecting 
it with the Simplon. For the principal traffic of this 
pass would, even then, not touch Berne, but go to its 
destination by way of Lausanne, which aims at taking the 
same place as a meeting-point of traffic behind Geneva 
that Zurich takes behind Basle. 

All the little centres stand considerably behind the 
towns which have been mentioned. The modest pro- 
sperity of Neuchatel is closely limited by the Jura and 
the lake. Lucerne dominates only the beautiful little 
world of its own lake, and Chur the passes of the 
Grisons, which have become less frequented. As seats 
of modern industry, both the watchmaking-town of La 
Chaux de Fonds and the old St. Gallen have risen into 
importance. On the other side of the Alps, and leading 



THE ALPINE COUNTRIES 207 

into quite another world, lies Lugano, the most southerly 
outpost of Switzerland, hidden among gardens whose 
mountains are mirrored in a warm lake. 

As we advance farther towards the east the Alps 

become less important. The summits of the mountains 

sink to a lower altitude, the passes become 

easier, the great valleys grow wider and ^ HE Alpine 

t, ■* ui u-i \u u 1 4i Countries of 

more hospitable, while the absolutely un- Austria 

productive part, which in Valais and Uri 
occupied more than half the area, not much less in the 
Grisons, and a third even in Ticino, shrinks to less than a 
fifth as soon as we come to Tyrol and Salzburg, and in 
Styria and Upper Austria is less than a tenth. These 
increasing tracts of productive land are occupied by grass 
only in those districts which lie near to Switzerland, and 
compete with it in cattle - farming, such as the Vorarl- 
berg and the Bavarian Allgau. In all the other parts of 
the eastern Alps forest covers the greater part of the 
country, and, taking all the Alpine districts of Austria 
together, occupies 39 per cent, of the whole area. The 
prosperous days of gold-mining in the Tauern, and of 
silver and copper mining at Schwaz, in the lower valley of 
the Inn, belong indeed to the past, but Salzburg still yields 
copper, Carinthia lead and zinc, Carniola not only zinc, 
but also quicksilver from Idria, while the iron mountain 
of Eisenerz is superior to all other mines in the Alpine 
countries. Antiquity praised the " Noric blade," and 
still older may be the salt mines of the Salzkammergut, 
famous for the archaeological discoveries of Hallstadt. 
The old salt-mines at Aussee, Hallstadt, Ischl, Hallein, and 
Hall (in the Tyrol), are still worked, but the salt streams 
which came from the salt-beds, and of which the evapo- 
ration yielded coarse salt, were carried down — as soon as 
the fuel of the immediate neighbourhood had been con- 
sumed — in long loops to distant woodlands. Thus the 
salt-spring of Hallstadt and Ischl goes down to Ebensee ; 
that of Berchtesgaden, in the Bavarian portion of the 
same salt-bed which near Hallein belongs to Austria, 



208 CENTRAL EUROPE 

is carried over a high pass to Reichenhall, and evert 
farther on, by way of Traunstein to Rosenheim on the 
Inn, where, besides the wood of considerable forests, the 
peat of a large bog lies ready to be used in the evaporating 
of the salt. 

The hills of the Alpine foreland, especially the Haus- 
ruck, as well as the valley districts of the rivers Inn, 
Drave, Mur, Save, and Sann, possess excellent beds of 
lignite, the richest of these being in Styria, along the 
western border of the basin of Graz. The neighbour- 
hood of this deposit, and that of Leoben, lightens the 
pressure of competition from northern ironworks to which 
Styria has been exposed since improved modern processes 
of smelting, by rendering possible and profitable the forg- 
ing of phosphates of iron, deprived Styrian iron of the 
superiority which it enjoyed in being free from phosphorus. 

Mining in its various shapes has had a great influence 
in drawing settlers to the valleys of the Eastern Alps, and 
still gives employment to a considerable part of the popu- 
lation. The districts specially favoured by climate, the 
Rhine Valley and the valleys of Southern Tyrol, are 
most thickly peopled. In the Vorarlberg spinning and 
embroidery are carried on, as well as agriculture and 
horticulture, successfully modelled upon those of Switzer- 
land ; in Italian Tyrol, as in Lombardy, many busy hands 
are employed in the breeding of silkworms. But, in 
all these districts, the essential feature of economic life 
lies in the high cultivation of the land. Mulberry trees 
stand in rows along the edges or down the middle of the 
fields ; between them swing the garlands of the vine, and 
the same field will here be seen to bear maize for polenta, 
wine to gladden the heart of rich and poor alike, and 
mulberry leaves for the silkworm. But the population 
has already outgrown the country's resources, and numbers 
of industrious workers from Italian Tyrol are seeking 
their bread in foreign countries. Farther north, in 
the German portion of Southern Tyrol, where silk- 
breeding disappears, fruit culture takes its place beside 
the vine culture, whose cheerful verdure fills all the 



THE ALPINE COUNTRIES 209. 

hollows about Bozen, and many a neat village draws a 
rich return from the loads of apples, nuts, and chest- 
nuts which it sends abroad. These favoured valleys of 
Southern Tyrol attract a large proportion of the crowd of 
tourists whom the charm of the mountains draws to the 
Eastern Alps. The mountain lover must not look, in the 
high valleys of the Austrian Alps, for the invariable comfort 
and luxuriousness of a Swiss hotel ; nor will he find a net 
of railings running round those mountain peaks that afford 
the finest views ; but, wherever he goes, he will soon feel 
at home among a kind-hearted people. 

The point at which the Brenner line runs into the 
longitudinal valley of the Inn and joins the Arlberg line is 
naturally the site of the capital of the country, Innsbruck, 
situated upon the plane of a broad shallow valley. To 
the south of the Brenner no one centre reunites the 
advantages possessed by Innsbruck. Franzensfeste is the 
point of junction of railways ; Brixen is the bishopric ; 
at Bozen the rivers meet, and Meran is the terminus 
of the mediaeval road over the Brenner, which avoiding 
the difficult gorges of the Eisack valley, diverged at 
Sterzing, and came over the Jaufen. At that period the 
castle of Tyrol, above Meran, was a feudal seat well fitted 
to impress its name upon the whole country. Trient, the 
capital of Italian Tyrol, which is inferior to none of these 
four places, is the dividing point of the roads to Venice, 
Verona, and Brescia. 

Farther east the Hohen Tauern divide the provinces 
of Salzburg and Carinthia, each of which can communi- 
cate easily with Tyrol, but not so easily with the other* 
Beautiful Salzburg, in its character of doorway to Tyrol, 
assumes increased importance from the fact that the Inn, 
when it emerges from the mountains, is no longer in 
Austrian territory. Klagenfurt, the capital of Carinthia, 
lies in a quieter place, and is more distinctly a town 
of the interior of the Alps. Its basin has beauties 
of scenery that far surpass the boggy plain of Laibach, 
the capital of Carniola, but cannot altogether compare 
with it as a centre of traffic. The railway from Trieste 



210 CENTRAL EUROPE 

now carries the traffic of the Mediterranean districts that 
once went by the busy Roman road between Aquileia and 
Nauportus. While the ancient road went up the Save 
and along it into the Hungarian lowland, the modern one 
turns very decidedly northward towards Styria. 

The Styrian capital, Graz, owes its existence, its 
name, and a part of the beauty of its landscape to the 
steep mountain, crowned by a castle, that rises in a 
picturesque promontory from the broad valley of the 
Mur. But the size and the importance of the town were 
decided by its position at the outlet of -the Mur into the 
basin of Graz. At this point the road into the Raab 
valley, going on into the heart of Hungary, branches off 
to the east from the River Mur, which guides the course 
another road in the direction to the Adriatic. From the 
west lignite pours into the town from the neighbouring 
beds and enables it to take part in the forging of Styrian 
iron, and to enter upon many branches of manufacture. 

Two easy approaches give access from the south to the 
inner longitudinal valley of Styria, from the two ends of 
which the rivers Mur and Miirz flow to meet each other, 
that of the lower valley of the Mur from Graz, and the 
low pass of Neumarkt from the basin of Klagenfurt. 
To the north two corresponding outlets open towards 
the northern border of the Alps. The more westerly of 
these goes across the low Schober Pass to the Enns, and 
follows that river up to its junction with the Danube, 
whence it continues northward into Bohemia ; near the 
southern entrance of that country lies Linz, the capital of 
Upper or Western Austria. The Semmering railway, on 
the other hand, goes north-eastward from the Miirz to 
the largest town of the whole Alpine country. 

The basin of Vienna is the only break in the great 

curve of the mountains that stretch from the Gulf 

of Liguria to the Black Sea. It lies at an 

important point near to that at which the 

chain changes direction from east to north-east. It 

thus happens that the road which follows the eastern 



THE ALPINE COUNTRIES 211 

border of the Alps from the innermost angle of the 
Adriatic Sea continues, beyond the Danube, through 
the Carpathian foreland of Moravia towards the north- 
east, and finds its easiest way out, into the northern 
lowland, through the Moravian gap. This north- 
eastern road crosses the south-eastward course of the 
Danube in the basin of Vienna. The communica- 
tion between the Adriatic and the Baltic by way 
of the ancient amber road across the great chain of 
mountains can hardly be of more recent origin than 
Massalia and Olbia, the Greek trading places which 
reached out from the two ends of the mountains into 
the interior of the continent. The history of the basin 
of Vienna, however,* only begins with the establishment of 
the Roman camp at Carnuntum, which was a main bul- 
wark of the Danube frontier near the exit of the river 
from the basin of Vienna. It was the central point of the 
defences from which the Romans kept watch upon the 
native roads through the valleys of the March and the 
Waag. The flanks were protected by Brigetio (not far 
from Komorn) on the east, and by Vindobona on the 
west. Vienna assumed a very different importance in the 
Middle Ages, when the Germans pushed their boundaries 
forward into this neighbourhood against the Hungarian 
mounted tribes. Vienna was the foremost well-secured 
outpost against them, protected in the rear and on either 
side by the mountains and the river, here close together, 
and requiring to be defended only on the south front, 
along the river Wien. 

Mediaeval Vienna, the capital of the " Ostmark " 
(eastern march), was thus — like ancient Vindobona — 
primarily a border town. Only when it ceased to be 
this did it attain to a higher importance. It next became 
the capital of the Alpine possessions of the Habsburgs. 
As the tail of a peacock slowly unfolds into a full circle, 
so these possessions, enlarged by wise domestic policy, 
grew round Vienna. Six natural districts may be men- 
tioned which have Vienna for their centre : — The Alps, 
rich in wood, iron, and salt ; the country of the upper 
15 



212 CENTRAL EUROPE 

Danube, the home of colonists who were continually- 
adding strength to the Austrian forces by whom the east 
was being settled and cultivated ; Bohemia, blessed with 
silver, coal, and an industrially skilled population ; Moravia, 
fertile in itself, and valuable, moreover, because it gives 
access to the northern lowland and Galicia ; Upper 
Hungary, storehouse of precious metals and copper ; 
the Hungarian Plain, an immeasurably rich country of 
luxuriant meadows and wide pastures, engirt by vine- 
yard slopes. Thus Vienna occupies a position singularly 
adapted to bring wealth and prosperity to the capital 
so happily placed as a centre of exchange. 

One thing only diminishes the advantages of this 
situation, the differences of the peoples by whom the 
countries around Vienna are inhabited. The more 
sharply marked these racial divergences become, the 
more certainly will the fortunes of Vienna again undergo 
vicissitudes that will recall the former, not wholly 
obliterated condition as a border town. The period of 
the Turkish wars, indeed, when Vienna once again 
occupied the position of a door shutting off the western 
countries from the barbarians, is long gone by. Hungary, 
which was then a prey to Asiatic conquerors, has become 
a highly civilised country, but it has also become an 
independent country with a centre of its own, whose 
importance diminishes that of Vienna. Moreover, Vienna 
lies near to the border of the western half of the empire, 
and even within this, Sclavonic races are striving for 
greater independence, and are resisting the attraction of 
the capital. 

In her struggle against these centrifugal tendencies, 
Vienna may safely put her trust in those advantages of 
situation which have hitherto kept her growing and 
progressing. With the increased facilities of communi- 
cation, Vienna has come to the front as a centre of 
continental traffic. The point at which the lines from 
Moscow to Marseilles, and from London to Constantinople 
cross, must remain a focus of European life. 

Instead of the mediaeval belt of walls, the old kernel 



THE ALPINE COUNTRIES 213 

of the city is now encircled by the Ringstrasse with its 
fringe of palaces. Far-reaching suburbs lie beyond it in 
every direction. Greater Vienna, a metropolis of one and 
a half million of inhabitants, has overstepped the outer 
ring of the old communal octroi-line ; and the spread of 
the town on the other side of the arms of the Danube 
Canal — which are defended from floods — being restricted 
by the liability of inundation from the river, the outskirts 
have pushed their way up the hillsides between the vine- 
yards, and, stretching out into the southern plain, have 
absorbed a number of villages that at one time were 
separate. This circle of suburbs is animated by industries 
that touch almost every branch of manufacture, work up 
raw materials from every part of the empire, and create, 
not only all the necessaries of life, but also those many 
accessory adornments, requiring invention, taste, and 
fancy, which are so dear to the spoilt children of 
civilisation. Nor is this all ; the noblest intellectual life 
— art and science — finds a home in Vienna, the light from 
which streams out not only upon the peoples of the great 
empire, but far over its borders. 

Note on Authorities. — While Switzerland still awaits a description 
worthy of its admirable cartography, the Alpine lands of Austria have 
been adequately portrayed in five volumes of the work projected by 
the Crown Prince Rudolf. 

The geographical position of Vienna has been described by J. G. Kohl, 
A. Penck {Schriften des Vereins zur Verbreitung naticrw. Kentnisse, 
xxxv. 1895), and Gulliver (Journal of School Geography, iv. 1900). 



CHAPTER XIII 

THE SUDETIC AND CARPATHIAN COUNTRIES OF AUSTRIA 

While the Alpine territory contained within the Austrian 

empire occupies with its impressive and beautiful scenery 

an extensive stretch of country (44,752 

The Sudetic S q Uare rniles), the territory belonging to the 

Countries 

of Austria Sudetes is less by one-third (30,604 square 

miles), but contains a population almost 
one-third larger (9,400,000). The population is, there- 
fore, almost twice as dense, and economic life, in the 
three basins whose waters may be seen from the 
Schneeberg near Glatz running towards three different 
seas, is more richly developed and not so much con- 
centrated to a single focus. 

Hardly any other country in the interior of our 
continent has so clear and self-centred an individuality 
as Bohemia. Even its old chronicler, Cosmas, points 
out that no stream flows within it which does not rise 
within its borders. Other countries, especially Tran- 
sylvania and Switzerland, might say the same ; but 
Bohemia, instead of letting its rivers run away, as these 
countries do, in all directions, emits the abundant waters 
that come down from its wide framework of mountains 
through one single opening. This fact, and the radial 
convergence of the watercourses towards the middle of 
the country, tend to give it an unusual inner solidity and 
unity, preventing a divergence of economic interests. 
Aristotle declares autarchy } the capacity of providing for 
itself, to be the necessary condition of political inde- 
pendence ; and Bohemia fulfils this condition in quite 
a unique degree. Except salt, which it lacks, its rocks 
provide it with every mineral product ; while the plants 



SUDETIC AND CARPATHIAN COUNTRIES 215 

of the earth ascend in a long series from the vineyards 
of Melnik to the high mountain pastures of the Riesen 
Gebirge, which rise above the line of the woods, and are 
only besprinkled with isolated patches of dark dwarf pines. 

In the matter of natural qualities of soil, four main 
divisions of Bohemia may be distinguished. The south 
Bohemian group of old crystalline rocks falls gradually 
from the wooded heights of the encircling mountains 
to an undulating highland mainly given to agriculture. 
The towns are here sparse and also small, with the ex- 
ception of Budweis, which has sprung up in the valley 
of the Moldau at the intersection of the roads from 
Linz and Vienna, and is a busy trading place. The 
north-east of the country, as far as the fertile valley 
of the Elbe, is occupied by the foreland of the Sudetic 
mountains, and covered for the most part by broken 
"slabs of freestone. The valleys are here the seat of an 
active textile trade, which is served, not only by water- 
power, but also by the coal of a bed that extends from 
Silesia. The glass trade, too, flourishes, especially at the 
southern foot of the Iser Gebirge and of the mountains of 
Lusatia. In a valley of their northern slope lies Bohemia's 
largest German manufacturing town, Reichenberg. The 
north-west of the country, thanks to the depression of 
the Biela and Eger valleys, at the foot of the Erz 
Gebirge, possesses not only some of the warmest and 
most fruitful tracts of land, but also those great beds of 
lignite which have given rise both to a mining activity that 
threatens the hot springs of Teplitz and to large industrial 
undertakings. 

The western part of Central Bohemia, headed by 
Pilsen, unites a variety of mineral resources, silver ores, 
iron, coal measures. This wealth has helped to infuse 
new life into the old capital of the country and to trans- 
form the quiet and venerable royal city of Prague into a 
great modern manufacturing town. 

The central position of Prague, where six highways 
meet, offers many advantages. Lying but ten miles above 
the emergence of the Moldau from the narrow valley of the 



2 i6 CENTRAL EUROPE 

old schistose rock into the basin of the Melnik, Prague is 
low enough to be one of the warmest and most agreeable 
spots in the country, and to be surrounded by vineyards 
lying at the feet of the proud hills which were crowned in 
the Middle Ages by bold castles, and later on by palaces, 
churches, and monasteries. A striking contrast to the 
picturesque aspect of historic Prague is afforded by the 
extensive suburbs, busy with manufacture and modern 
commerce. Only one-sixth of the inhabitants are of 
German nationality. Fifty years ago, Prague was reckoned 
as a German town. 

Briinn, the capital of Moravia, is German still: the heart 
of an area of German speech marking the outpost of the 
wide stream of German immigration from Lower Austria 
into that western part of the March basin which is drained 
by the Thaya. Briinn has grown up at the foot of the 
steep Spielberg upon a peninsula between two confluent 
rivers, at the point where the roads from Bohemia 
and the county of Glatz, which have previously joined, 
come out into the fertile lowland of Western Moravia. 
The central position, between the Carpathians and the 
Bohemian-Moravian mountains, between the Danube and 
the Sudetes, only received its full value when the modern 
system of railways came into action. It will, however, 
never be able to surmount the defect of lying aside from 
the natural main artery of Moravian traffic, the line of 
depression between the Bohemian group and the Car- 
pathians. Oddly enough, the other considerable towns of 
Moravia also lie far to the west of this line. This is the case 
not only with Iglau, but also with Olmiitz, the bishopric 
of Moravia, and principal town in the upper valley of the 
March, which was a fortress at one time overlooking 
the passes of the eastern Sudetic Mountains. Near the 
northern railway which runs from Vienna along the 
March and across the sill of the Moravian gap into 
the upper district of the Oder, the population has of 
late years increased and pressed into the coalfields of 
Moravian Ostrau, beyond the watershed, and about the 
forges of Witkowitz 



SUDETIC AND CARPATHIAN COUNTRIES 217 

The part of Moravia in the neighbourhood of Oder- 
berg touches the boundary of the empire, and divides 
fragments of Silesia which it still retains — the Sudetic 
duchies of Jagerndorf and Troppau, and the Carpathian 
duchy of Teschen. The two former, lying aside from 
the main roads and from the sources of power afforded 
by fossil fuels, have to depend for their modest prosperity 
upon the diligence of their inhabitants — exercised prin- 
cipally in the linen trade, but Teschen lies at the end of 
the Jablunka Pass, which is the great passage-way from 
Hungary into Germany, and the tributary which Teschen 
sends to the Oder meets that river in a valuable part 
of the Upper Silesian coalfield. Those parts of Austrian 
Silesia, therefore, which are in the neighbourhood of 
Oderberg are alive with pits and forges. The same is the 
case in the north-west of Galicia. 

The north-western environs of the great outer Car- 
pathian curve, those belonging to the Oder and the March, 
are so closely related to the Sudetic The Carpathian 
Mountains, and the south-eastern parts, Countries 
between the Danube and the Pruth, so (Galicia and 
intimately connected with the countries of THE Bukowina). 
the Black Sea, that only the central portion of this circle of 
country, the upper basins, that is to say, of the Vistula 
and Dniester, can be considered as thoroughly dominated 
by the Carpathians. The importance of mountains as a 
basis from which states develop is displayed by the 
history of these parts. The kingdom of Poland, which 
grew up in the flat country without natural boundaries, 
eventually planted its foot firmly upon the curve of the 
Carpathians. Then, and not till then, it gained strength 
enough gradually to extend its arms to the two seas that 
are fed by Carpathian rivers. As long as the power of 
Poland continued to flourish, Cracow was its capital. 
Even at the present day the tombs of celebrated kings 
impart a historic interest to the cathedral on the hill of 
its citadel. As Vienna stands at the south-western outlet 
of the valley passage by which the Carpathians are 



2i8 CENTRAL EUROPE 

divided from the secondary chains of Central Europe,, 
so Cracow faces the north-eastern outlet. This line of 
valley, along which John Sobieski advanced to the relief 
of Vienna in 1683, was the main link by which the 
Polish kingdom in the western part of the east European 
plain was connected with the Danube and the Medi- 
terranean Sea, with the seats of German Empire and 
Papal supremacy, German civilisation and Italian art and 
learning. This great main road was intersected at 
Cracow by that between Southern Russia and Northern 
Germany. The town had also easy. access, by way of the 
Carpathian passes, to the valleys of the Waag and the 
Hernad, while on the north the form of the watershed 
allowed a busy road to pass along it, cutting off the bend of 
the Vistula, to Thorn and Danzig, which were formerly the 
terminal points of the Vistula navigation, whose beginning 
was at Cracow. The navigation of the river has now 
dwindled, and carries down in considerable quantities 
only Silesian coal and Carpathian wood, but it formerly 
assisted largely in the conveyance of agricultural products 
and of salt from Wielicska, the traffic in which caused 
Cracow to be an active centre of trade long before German 
immigration made it the seat of manufacturing industries.. 
Below Cracow, the Vistula becomes the boundary of 
Russia, — a fact which hinders its development as a 
practicable waterway. At the sandy northern point of the 
country the north-eastward course of the river meets that 
of the San, which runs north-westward. There is an 
important cross of ways at the fortress of Przemysl. 

In East Galicia the capital is not upon the principal 
river. The meandering Dniester and its tributaries cut 
deep into the Podolian plain and intersect the surface of 
the country in a manner very unfavourable to traffic. 
When tablelands are cut into deep furrows by rivers, the 
roads are forced back to the neighbourhood of the water- 
sheds. The old trading road between Cracow and Kiev 
follows this rule all the more closely because the deso- 
late expanses of wood and marsh on the upper reaches of 
the Bug forbid it to stray towards the north. At the 



SUDETIC AND CARPATHIAN COUNTRIES 219 

very watershed between this river and the Dniester, 
has arisen Lemberg (Lwow), the capital of Galicia, 
which occupies a sheltered hollow among fertile hills 
of " loess." The situation has no positive natural ad- 
vantages. A possibility was offered, however, of drawing 
together at this point the ramifications of the traffic from 
Kiev, Odessa, and Galatz, and so making Lemberg the 
focus of the commercial activities directed into Galicia by 
places nearer the border of the empire, such as Brody, 
Tarnopol, and Czernowitz. The direct line of com- 
munication with Hungary across the Carpathians also 
served to bring the richest salt and petroleum deposits 
of East Galicia — those in the neighbourhood of Kalusz 
and Drohobycz — into connection with its trade centre. 
These nineteenth-century commercial conditions were the 
causes which first brought out the full value of the 
central situation of the capital, and they have contri- 
buted at least as much as the centralisation of legal 
procedure and the culmination, in three archbishops, of 
the hierarchies of three different creeds, to give Lemberg 
a place above that of the once celebrated Cracow. 

While Lemberg, in the open foreland, spreads out a 
network of communications, many smaller Galician towns 
lie on the border of the mountains at the mouths of the 
largest valleys. This line of towns, running inside the 
belt of the great rivers, continues into the Bukovina. 
Czernowitz, on the Pruth, also belongs to it. 

Although three different elements, Poles, Ruthenians, 
and Roumanians, have successively helped to form the 
national stock of their peoples, yet Galicia and the Buko- 
wina can be considered as one in the matter of civilisation 
and social life. The average density of population (eight 
millions in 34,340 square miles) is not small, when we 
remember that, in spite of the terrible destruction of 
forests in Galicia, 28 per cent, of the area is covered 
by woods, and that agriculture forms more decidedly 
the basis of economic existence than in any other part 
of the empire, Dalmatia alone excepted. Eighty-four 
per cent, of the wage-earners depend upon the land 



220 CENTRAL EUROPE 

and various processes of raw production ; only 6 per cent, 
have turned away to manufacture, and scarcely 5 per 
cent, to commerce. In agriculture a great gulf divides 
the large landed proprietors from the very small farmers ; 
division of property, carried to an extreme, has reduced 
the majority of the people to a state of helpless exploita- 
tion at the hands of money-lenders. Some of the larger 
landlords, too, whose property is not always managed in 
the steadiest way, are falling into the same condition. 
Manufacture is undeveloped ; it consists merely in the 
collection of the natural products of the earth, and their 
imperfect working. The instruction of the people is far 
lower than in the Alpine and Sudetic provinces of the 
empire. 

Note on Authorities. — Bohemia, Moravia, Silesia, Galicia, and the 
Bukovina, fill five books of Oestereich- Ungarn in Wort und Bild. 

The development of Prague was considered by F. G. Kohl in 1 873, in 
his Die Geographische Lage der Hauptstadte Europas, a work which 
also deals with Vienna, Trieste, Buda-Pest, Berlin, and Frankfort, 
delicately weighing the influence upon progress exerted by natural situa- 
tion, and relation to near and distant surroundings. 



CHAPTER XIV 

HUNGARY 

Although the Carpathians are nearly related to the Alps 
in formation, and their heights can bear comparison with 
at least the outer chains of those mountains, yet they do 
not exercise anything like the same power of attraction 
over the mountain lovers of highly civilised Western and 
Central Europe. The High Tatra alone is filled, in the 
height of summer, by a stream of tourists, who — as in the 
Alps — bring wealth, refinement, and a higher standard of 
life into poor valleys, and turn the beauty of nature into 
a direct addition to the economic assets of the country. 
In all other parts of the Carpathians this is only the case 
to a far less degree. Even the medicinal springs, which 
are at least as various and as effectual as those in the 
Alpine districts, only succeed in a few cases — such as 
Trencsin-Teplitz and Pistyan, in the charming valley 
of the Waag, and Hercules' Bath on the Czerna — in 
attracting a concourse of visitors at all equal to that of 
the celebrated Alpine baths. These frequented spots are 
sparsely scattered, and do not alter the fact that the greater 
part of the Carpathians is quiet and very little visited by 
strangers. Many tracts are among the least inhabited in 
all Europe. This is particularly true of the mountain 
country at the sources of the Theiss and the Pruth, and 
of the vast wooded mountains on the eastern and southern 
borders of Transylvania. It was only where beds of ore 
invited that a mining population early pushed its way 
into the woods and mountains. The widely extending 
district in which the Gran rises has been full ever since 
the thirteenth century of German colonists, who carried 
away quantities of precious metal from the lodes in the 



222 CENTRAL EUROPE 

trachite mountains of Kremnitz and Schemnitz, and from, 
this point a whole belt of mediaeval mining settlements 
stretches eastward as far as Gollnitz and Schmollnitz, in 
the Hernad district. All have passed the zenith of their 
fame, and with the decline in the mining of precious 
metals, the German nationality, at one time dominant, 
has declined too. In Transylvania gold held out longer 
on the south-eastern side of the mountains forming its 
western border, between the Marosh, the Aranyosh (golden 
river), and the source of the White Korosh. In these 
same districts are found the largest deposits of ironstone 
in Hungary. 

Owing to ore and salt mining, a number of little centres 
of civilisation have thus arisen among the Hungarian 
mountains, but large towns have no more been formed 
here, than they have by agriculture in the valleys. The 
most considerable spots in the mountain districts are 
where traffic meets : such is Kaschau in Upper Hungary ; 
and such in Transylvania are the Saxon towns of 
Kronstadt (Brasso) and Hermannstadt (Nagy-Seben), and 
Klausenburg (Koloshvar) which the Magyars chose as 
the foothold of their nationality — all of them occupy 
principal openings into the country. 

Within the ring of wooded mountains lie the vast in- 
terior plains of Hungary, which are the seat of many- 
sided and successful agriculture and cattle-farming. Often 
ravaged and in great part laid waste in the wild old days, 
these are now occupied by a population thicker than that 
of the mountains, but there is still abundant space to allow 
of a progressive increase. The circles of Hungary proper 
exclusive of the Croatian-Sclavonic kingdom, a territory of 
109,000 square miles with 16,721,000 inhabitants, may 
thus be divided into two groups of equal area, one includ- 
ing the tracts of country on the periphery of the Carpathian 
curve, and the other the central and generally flat kernel 
of the country. We find 127 persons to the square mile 
in the first group and 177 in the second. 

The great plain of the Alfold has been settled in a 
most peculiar manner. There are long stretches with no 



HUNGARY 223 

villages at all, and by far the greatest part of the inhabit- 
ants dwell together in towns and large hamlets, with ten, 
twenty, or thirty thousand inhabitants, which cover enough 
space for a town of five or six times their population. 
Their very broad, straight, unpaved streets — a sea of mud 
in wet weather and a wilderness of irregularities, baked 
hard as stones, in dry — cut one another at right angles. 
The square spaces between them are covered, not with 
houses of urban appearance, but with countrified farms, 
shut off by solid wooden fences enclosing not only the 
low dwelling-houses, but also farm buildings, stables, 
barns, gardens, and a considerable quantity of uncultivated 
land. This character of a steppe-village on a gigantic 
scale, built and drawn together only for the sake of de- 
fence against hordes of mounted robbers, belongs to 
the whole of the town, except the centre, where a few 
modern showy buildings and some rows of better houses 
surround the market-place (J>iacz), and occupy a handful 
of streets, in which paving and lighting make some ap- 
proach to the standard of European civilisation. Many 
of these townships have very extensive town lands. 

Of highroads, in the western European sense, there 
are none, only the enormously wide uncared-for paths 
of the steppe, amply sufficient for the light Hungarian 
vehicles, run between the towns. Latterly, however, 
many railways have been constructed across the plains, 
and are joining the towns to the capital of the country. 
A more independent centre of the Theiss district may be 
found in Seged, which has been rebuilt since the cata- 
strophe of 1879. The increase in population and im- 
provement in cultivation along the railways are gradually 
lifting these towns in the midst of the plains to a higher 
level than most of those which stand at the mouths of im- 
portant valleys in the mountain framework : — Temeshvar, 
Arad, Grosswardein (Nagy Varad), and Miskolcz. 

The abode of Attila and the Avar rulers might fitly 
lie in the plain of the Theiss, but when Hungary had 
become one with western civilisation, it could only 
establish its capital among the remnants of older civilisa- 



224 CENTRAL EUROPE 

tion on the Danube. The most considerable towns of 
ancient Pannonia have come to life again, in little altered 
positions, as the modern towns of the Danube. The 
entry of the Danube into the country was guarded 
in antiquity by Carnuntum, and in the Middle Ages 
by Pressburg, which grew up on the east side of the 
narrows and on the north side of the river, at the 
entrance to the Waag valley, and was intended as a 
border fortress against the German Empire. Pressburg 
owed its prosperity to German civilisation, and is still 
dominated by it. Its value as a crossing-place of the 
Danube is increased by the great islands which begin in 
the river just below. Not until the river has collected 
the additional waters of three tributaries into a single 
channel again do we come to another crossing-place at 
Komorn, a town and fortress opposite to the site of the 
ancient military town of Brigetio. In the narrows, 
where the river breaks across the mountains that divide 
the two plains, lies Gran (Estergom), which was the 
oldest abode of the Arpads, and the seat of the arch- 
bishopric, but also, for the space of 157 years, the outer- 
most bastion of Turkish power when at its height. The 
ruins of the castle of Vishegrad, in the gorge of the 
Danube, are remains of a royal residence, and show how 
clearly was understood the importance for rule of the 
whole of this connection between the two Hungarian 
plains. During three centuries, indeed, the advantages 
of a more southerly opening through the Hungarian 
secondary chain, on the shortest way from Pressburg and 
Raab, into the middle of the lower plain, were allowed to 
preponderate. There stood Stuhlweissenburg (Sekesh 
Feyervar), the place of coronation, the residence and 
burial-place of many kings. 

But historical experience has assigned superior im- 
portance to a middle gate between these two, once used 
by the Roman road which reached the bank of the 
Danube at Aquincum. Directly south of the ruins of this 
ancient town the dolomite heights of the secondary chain 
come close to the river and their rocks, now crowned by 



HUNGARY 225 

the royal castle, and the town of Ofen (Buda) command 
a splendid view over the powerful stream and, beyond it, 
over the immensity of Pest. 

The crossing-place of the Danube at the hot springs 
of Ofen was of immeasurable value in the old times of 
ferry transit, for ferries avoid long river islands as much as 
bridge-builders seek them. To this point came, not only 
a road from Vienna which, at Komorn, took in the traffic 
of the Waag valley and of Moravia, but also the line of 
traffic from Fiume, Agram, and Stuhlweissenburg, which 
ran by the edge of the Bakonyan Forest. If we look, 
however, at a ground plan of the roads from Pest, we 
see far more rays on the left bank, where unfolds a 
veritable fan of trading-roads. The radii diverge, at 
nature's bidding, to Silesia, Galicia, the Bukovina, Tran- 
sylvania, Roumania, and Servia. Their direction is 
always fixed by some distant river or mountain pass, and 
the wide open field around Pest gives them free play as 
the face of a clock gives it to the hands. 

Budapest lies close to the southern border of the 
mountain country, whence it receives wood and ore, and 
to the rocky heights of Ofen, which are favourable to the 
vine, and which provide good building stone and good 
wine-cellars. Before it lies a prospect of immeasurable 
plains, the produce of whose rich cultivation and whose 
cattle and horses are brought hither to market. 

The blossoming of Budapest into one of the finest 
modern cities of Europe is a work only of the last 
few decades. In 1869 the population was but 270,000, 
now it is 713,000. Ever since Hungary acquired a 
more independent position under the constitution of the 
Habsburg Empire, its predominant nation has been 
striving to realise a national unity, to which the de- 
velopments of history have by no means led up. The 
turning of Budapest into a Magyar town was the first 
step towards this aim. Every effort is now made to 
centralise the country ; even the modern developments 
of travel have been pressed into the service of this 
endeavour. The lines of railway which meet in the 



226 CENTRAL EUROPE 

capital have made it the seat of a great milling industry, 
of spirit distilleries, of cattle fattening, and of trade in 
pigs ; while, in another branch, the manufacture of 
machinery for all the needs of agricultural life is con- 
centrated here. The leather trade, ship-building, and 
ship-fitting also flourish. But the attraction of this 
commercial focus, extending even beyond the borders 
of Hungary, is not felt only by the wares of commerce. 
The various nationalities are being brought more and more 
completely under the influence of this Magyar centre. 
The desire of Hungarian statesmen — a desire which 
recalls a saying of Alexander — is to mix all the peoples 
of their country into a loving cup, whose main flavour 
should be Magyar ; and nothing has been of more sub- 
stantial assistance to them than the zone-tariff, established 
in 1889, which makes access to the capital astoundingly 
cheap to the dwellers in the remotest parts of the king- 
dom. Thus Budapest is, in a truer sense than any other 
town of Central Europe, the heart whose beat regulate? 
the circulating blood of a strong national life. 

Budapest is the first in the series of double towns 
which border the lower half of the Danube, and are in 
themselves eloquent witnesses to its greatness. Only one 
more of these pairs of towns belongs to Hungary — 
Neusatz and Peterwardein (Ujvidek, Petervarad), which 
are situated at the last Danube bridge in the country, 
the often disputed passage which leads to the mouth of 
the Save, with its pair of towns, Semlin and Belgrade. 
This is the main road into the interior of the Balkan 
peninsula. The river traffic passing beneath this bridge 
is enabled to make its way against the stream for the 
service of the coalfields at Fiinfkirchen (Pecs), the most 
important town of the country on the west of the 
Danube (Dunantul). The southern frontier of this dis- 
trict, the river Drave, cuts off the kingdom of Croatia 
and Sclavonia, 16,420 square miles, with 2,397,000 in- 
habitants, from Hungary proper. 

Of this land only the eastern wing, the district 
lying between the rivers Drave and Save, falls within 



HUNGARY 227 

the Carpathian framework ; the western part is purely 
Karst country. The territory lying between the two great 
Alpine rivers, that emerging in parallel lines from the 
mountains, not only raise the volume of the Danube, 
but force it to take their own course, is a territory 
rich in wood and in arable land, the population and 
productiveness of which may still be considerably in- 
creased. Not only the mountain parts, but also consi- 
derable tracts of the plain are covered by green forests, 
the oaks and beeches furnishing food to swine. Traffic 
in part follows the rivers downwards, and in part passes, 
by means of the railways, into the valleys of the Alps 
and to the Adriatic Sea. Both objectives are better served 
"by Agram (Zagrab), the capital and centre of the South 
Sclavonian intellectual life of the kingdom, than they 
were by the ancient Siscia (now Sissek), which was 
situated at the junction of the Save and the Kulpa. 

Note on Authorities. — In addition to the seven volumes of the work 
Oestereich- Ungarn in Wort und Bild, devoted to the countries appertain- 
ing to the crown of Stephen, and the economic writings of A. von 
Matlekovitz, I have been allowed, in writing this section, to make use 
of an unpublished work, Die Magyaren und ihr Land, by my friend, 
Heinrich Winkler, who is certainly the best authority in Germany in 
regard to the language and civilisation of that race. 



16 



CHAPTER XV 

THE ILLYRIAN AND BALKAN COUNTRIES 

THE south-west of Croatia, notwithstanding its immediate 
neighbourhood to the sea, is so cut off from the world, 
Karst s0 thinly peopled (scarcely ioo to the square 

Countries mile), so rich in forests (44 per cent, of the 
and the area) and in neglected pasture-land (24 per 
Adriatic cent.), that this district is economically one 
of the least developed of the whole continent. Traffic 
is driven back from the coast by the heavy gales of 
the Bora. Only one gateway for the outlet of Hungarian 
commerce to the sea, and this due not so much to nature 
as to the energy of modern engineering, lies open in the 
port and district of Fiume, which was cut away from 
the kingdom of Croatia in 1868, and joined as an 
exclave to Hungary. This harbour can only properly be 
considered in connection with the whole series of 
Adriatic ports, and the Croatian Karst country is but 
a member of that zone of naturally related countries 
which extends from the Triglav and the Isonzo as far 
as Montenegro. No other Karst country except that 
of Carniola is equal in the extent of its forests to that 
of Croatia. Istria and Dalmatia are much poorer in 
timber. Arable and meadow-land greatly diminish in 
Istria and Dalmatia (to 1 1 and 7 per cent, in the former 
and 1 1 and 0.8 per cent, in the latter) ; the vine, on the 
other hand, is more plentiful in these countries (9.5 and 
6.3 per cent.) and in the neighbourhood of the town 
of Trieste (13 per cent.), where its relative extent and 
economic value become greater than in any other parts 
of the Empire. The vine is the source of livelihood 
to the peasant of the coasts, as the breeding of the 



THE ILLYRIAN AND BALKAN COUNTRIES 229 

lesser domestic animals is to the dweller in the rough 
mountains. 

The most richly cultivated land in the whole Adriatic 
portion of the empire is to be found in the carefully 
tended plain of Goritz, which has quite the character 
of Italian farming, though in the actual town which 
spreads round the mountain and castle, the Sclavonian 
element is increasing. Goritz, nestling in the warmest 
nook of the plain of the Isonzo, and sheltered by the 
mountains from rough winds, so that its climate makes 
it a winter health resort, takes its share in the heritage 
of ancient Aquileia. The commercial importance of this 
town was transferred in the Middle Ages to Venice ; but, 
in modern times, the activity of communication with the 
interior has brought not only the trade of Aquileia, but 
a good deal of the international trade of Venice also, back 
to the inner angle of the Adriatic and into the harbour 
of Trieste. 

Charles the Sixth, who in the course of his strife 
for the Spanish throne had come to perceive how much 
the value of countries depended on the sea, was the 
first to claim for Austria a free share in maritime trade ; 
and the importance of Trieste commenced when, in 1719, 
he declared it to be a free port. The place had not been 
favoured by nature. At the foot of the steep mountains 
lay but a narrow strip of coast, now swept by the power- 
ful downward rushes of the Bora, now attacked by the 
waves which strong and persistent winds drove up from 
the south-west. There was no natural harbour. Every- 
thing had to be done artificially, nor could the com- 
pletest possible works alter the fact that when the Bora 
blows violently, the harbour is inaccessible even for 
strong steamers. Nevertheless, Trieste is a good example 
of what an enlightened Government may do by persis- 
tently working towards a definite end. The enterprise 
of the Austrian Lloyd Company, started in 1836 by 
Government capital and subsidised ever since, secures 
to this port a considerable share in the trade of the 
eastern Mediterranean, and extends its commercial 



2 3 o CENTRAL EUROPE 

activities to Brazil on the one hand, and — since the 
completion of the Suez Canal — to India, China, and 
Japan on the other. It has still no other feeder than 
the Southern Railway from Vienna and still lacks 
direct communication with South Germany. Growing 
attention is given to industrial pursuits, the raw mate- 
rials being imported from a distance and assiduously 
worked up. 

In spite of the indefatigable solicitude with which the 
Austrian Government watches over its port, created by 
so many sacrifices, Fiume begins to compete with it suc- 
cessfully. This town also was declared a free port by 
Charles the Sixth in 1725, and in 1776 was assigned 
to Hungary by Maria Theresa. It was not, however, 
until that country had attained an independent develop- 
ment that Fiume began to grow into an important place. 
The harbour works, upon which seventeen millions of 
florins were expended between the years 1872 and 1892, 
completely altered the appearance of the shore. Large 
warehouses with an elevator keep the grain in readiness 
for exportation, and in almost every department of 
seafaring, commercial, or industrial activity, Hungary has 
established in Fiume undertakings that compete with those 
of Trieste. The shipping, however, is organised with 
special reference to the west. The population is pre- 
dominantly Croatian and Italian. The place is in course 
of rapid growth, and is extending the circle of its inland 
influence not only into the cornfields of Hungary and the 
forests of Croatia, but also into Bosnia. This development, 
too, of Fiume is a triumph of modern industry. Nature 
did not favour the approaches. The waters of the Quar- 
nero are stormy and inhospitable. 

While the busy trading ports of the Adriatic lie on the 
inmost shore of northerly gulfs, the peninsula projecting 
between them is the site of the empire's naval port — Pola. 
Rome had a naval station here ; Napoleon recognised the 
value of this fine natural harbour ; and now Austria is 
once more making use of it. Room is found alongside of 
the navy for the modest trade of Istria ; but Istria and 



THE ILLYRIAN AND BALKAN COUNTRIES 231 

the shores of the Gulfs of Trieste and Fiume, could not 
alone furnish strength enough for the protection of 
Austria-Hungary's maritime trade. The weather-hardened 
peoples of the Dalmatian coast whence old Rome took 
the crews of her Adriatic fleet, now prevail in the marine 
of Austria. 

The sardine and tunny fisheries of Dalmatia, and the 
preserving processes arising out of them are progressing 
and increasing. Some three-fifths of the total maritime 
activity of the empire belongs to Dalmatia. A con- 
siderable trade is divided among its numerous bays. 
Where the land at the foot of the Velebit Mountains 
and the Dinaric Alps widens into greater breadth, 
between the two groups of islands into which it breaks 
up on the north and south, lie the three principal 
trading towns, Zara, Sebenico, and Spalato. The first 
commercial position belongs, not to Zara, whose site, 
projecting to the north, pointed it out to all the 
rulers who came from the north, Venetians, Hungarians, 
and now Austrians, as the seat of the provincial govern- 
ment, but to Spalato, the successor of the ancient Salona. 
New streets and squares are adding themselves to the 
original centre so strangely built into the palace of 
Diocletian, and are encircling the safe bay. An important 
future may yet await the town if it can succeed in making 
the bay of Salona, whence the old Roman roads diverged 
into the interior of the country, the terminus of a railway 
into Bosnia. The much-desired opening up of the hinter- 
land is likely to touch Ragusa sooner, but there is no 
danger that the old historic town itself, which preserved 
its independence up to the times of Napoleon, will have the 
charm of its quiet walls, its little harbour, and brightly 
coloured landscape disturbed by the smoke and noise of 
modern traffic. The scene occupied by this will almost 
certainly be the Bay of Gravosa, which, divided from 
Ragusa by a hilly barrier, forms one of the finest natural 
harbours of these coasts. 

The southern part of Dalmatia is a narrow strip of coast 
at the foot of the Montenegrin Mountains. Cattaro, 



232 CENTRAL EUROPE 

Austria's strongly fortified naval station, is still the most 
important opening for communication between the 
Montenegrins and the outer world, and naturally the 
object of their keenest desire. The wish to keep 
Montenegro from the sea, which expresses itself in the 
Austrian fortifications that press close upon the frontier, 
has led the Austrians to take possession of Spizza. From 
this point they mount guard over the Bay of Antivari, 
which port, however, and the more southern Dulcigno 
give the Montenegrins but a far-off access to the sea, 
only to be reached across a high barrier of mountains. 
The value of this short seaboard, of some twenty-five 
miles, is further diminished by Austria's exercise of police 
rights in matters of navigation and sanitation, and by the 
prohibition to keep war-ships. Thus Montenegro, in spite 
of the extension of its territory, is more closely hemmed 
in by having Austria for a strong neighbour on its entirely 
arbitrary western frontier than it used to be under the 
elastic and variable pressure upon its enclosure by Turkey. 
Nor is the share of Montenegro in the Lake of Scutari 
and the mouths of the Boyana allowed free play, on 
account of the intractable animosity of their Albanian 
neighbours. Only the future can show whether the little 
state will be able really to use its new hard-won possessions 
in the fruitful lowland and along the coast in such a 
manner as to increase its own prosperity. 

At the present time the countries of the Adriatic, even 
if we exclude the large town of Trieste, show a rapidly 
descending scale of population and social importance as 
we advance to the south-east. Herzegovina stands in the 
same low rank with Montenegro, which it resembles in 
natural character, and in the descent and disposition of 
its inhabitants. Owing to their common political fate it 
is always spoken of in the same breath with Bosnia, but 
has no likeness to the Bosnian wooded mountains and 
green valleys, being a poor, and in many parts an un- 
watered, Karst country. Wherever a watercourse meets 
the dazzled eye there is an oasis, which ceases where the 
water disappears. Busy life is only found at Mostar, in 



THE ILLYRIAN AND BALKAN COUNTRIES 233 

the basin of the Lower Narenta, fertile, but burning hot in 
summer. 

Bosnia and Servia, sister countries linked together by- 
nature, send their waters north-westward into the common 
channel that carries the Save and the Danube 
from Belgrade to the Iron Gate. From the BosNIA 
point of view of climate the two countries are c ERVIA 
practically one. In regard to warmth the rise of 
the land towards the south outweighs the difference of 
latitude. Both countries are distinguished by extensive 
oak forests, which supply excellent food for the swine 
that play a large part in the life of the people and in 
the economic activities of the country. Another im- 
portant product for exportation is common to both 
countries — the harvest of those great plum orchards amid 
which the villages lie hidden. No other district in the 
world seems to be even approximately so favourable to 
the growth of this fruit. That Bosnia and Servia are 
peopled by the same Slavonic stock makes an ethno- 
logical link, too, between the two countries ; but their 
position in the world and their political destinies have 
brought about different developments. 

The confined character of Bosnia affected its religious 
development in a most decisive manner. In the twelfth 
century the sect of Bogumils arose here, whose concep- 
tion of the world and of religious life, which they repre- 
sented as a continual conflict between God and the Devil, 
rested, like that of the Manicheans, upon a supposed 
duality of supernatural powers ruling the universe. This 
sect was suppressed in the middle of the fifteenth cen- 
tury, but did not disappear. Repudiated by fellow-Chris- 
tians, it yielded many renegades to the creed of the in- 
vading Mohamedans. Thus Bosnia became the strongest 
north-western outpost of Islamism. 

In the course of its twenty years' rule Austria has done 
wonders in the way of improving the country, has made 
roads, built railways, opened up the treasures of the earth, 
caused the surface to be cultivated, and created promising 



234 CENTRAL EUROPE 

industries. Tourists in considerable number enliven the 
country, which has a particular charm, due to the Eastern 
life, that has in no way disappeared with the awakening 
of the people to modern activity and remunerative labour. 
If to the existing radii of communication are added rail- 
ways to Mitrovitza and Novi Bazar, the basin of Bosnia, 
already connected with the Narenta Valley and the 
Adriatic, will be open also to the Gulf of Salonica. 
The 19,700 square miles of Bosnia and Herzegovina 
were inhabited in 1895 by 1,568,000 (eighty to the 
square mile). 

The number and density of the population in the 
occupied territory is thus still below that of the kingdom 
of Servia (18,860 square miles ; 2,384,000 inhabitants). 
But the progress of the latter country has been very much 
slower in the last twenty or thirty years. The natives 
lack neither skill nor diligence in their home industries 
of wool and carpet weaving, but the mineral wealth 
of the region is left almost untouched, and modern 
industrial processes, all the natural essentials of which 
are at hand in abundance, have only lately begun to 
develop. Over most of the country agriculture persists 
in its primitive rough methods. Agricultural exports fall 
far below those of cattle. The vineyards were formerly 
considerable, but three-fourths of them have been de- 
stroyed by the phylloxera. The exploiting of timber, 
where seriously begun, has rapidly degenerated into 
destruction. The road system is but little developed ; 
the difficulty and expense of transport obstructs every 
branch of production, and diminishes the value to the 
country even of those great railways which have been 
forced upon it by foreign enterprise, and in part by 
international agreements, because its geographical posi- 
tion necessitated its inclusion in the European system of 
traffic. 

Belgrade, in spite of its eventful history, produces 
the impression of a new town. Not long ago it might 
have been called a village, though indeed a large one. 
That countrified character which Belgrade has only lost 



THE ILLYRIAN AND BALKAN COUNTRIES 235 

during the last twenty or thirty years still clings to most 
of Servia's other towns. The right bank of the Danube, 
from the junction with the Save to that with the Timok, 
is Servian. Thus Raduyevats, the lowest Servian town 
upon the river, was able to have direct communication 
with the sea even before the regulation of the water- 
course at the Iron Gate. Now Belgrade itself can be 
reached by the vessels of the Lower Danube. Inner 
Servia could make even fuller use of this waterway if 
the Morava also were again made navigable, as it was 
down to the seventeenth century ; but this river is 
closed in many places by mills and fisheries. Beside it 
runs the railway from Belgrade to Salonica, which leaves 
Servian soil at Vranya. Among the many towns which it 
touches is one of great antiquity, occupying an inde- 
structible natural position — Nissa, where the railway to 
Constantinople and a road into the Timok valley branch 
off. The northern border, the centre, and the east of the 
country are thus traversed by important lines of inter- 
national communication, but the mountain country of the 
south-west remains untouched by these currents of general 
life from without. Great duties in the direction of internal 
social development still lie before the country. Quiet, 
honest labour would be more advantageous to it than 
pretentious boasting about future claims, that are in 
glaring contrast with the weakness of a disorganised 
budget and unbridled party dissensions. 

Bulgaria is the most recent of European political 

formations. It gained its footing under very difficult 

conditions, but by the addition of the „, 

' . r^xo 1- .1 The Countries 

Turkish province of East Roumeha, the OF THE l ower 

tributary principality became a state Danube and 
comprising 37,320 square miles and the Black Sea. 
3,733,000 inhabitants. The division of —Bulgaria 
the territory by the Balkans, which run 
through the centre, involves no risk to the country's con- 
tinuity, because the inhabitants are of the same stock. 
In times of danger it is rather an advantage, as giving 



236 CENTRAL EURQPE 

an inner line of defence in case of any conceivable attack. 
The frontier lies most open towards Turkey, to which the 
waters run down from the wheat-growing plains of East 
Roumelia. The products of the country do not take quite 
the same direction, but are chiefly carried by the railway 
from the interior to the Bay of Burgas, which, however, 
has no harbour for ships, but only an imperfect roadstead. 
The favourable climate on the southern slopes of the 
Balkan allows of the cultivation of rose-gardens among 
the chestnut groves at its foot, and the perfumery trade of 
Europe is supplied from them ; vineyards follow the foot 
of the Sredna Gora and the mountains of Rhodope, and 
in the warm moist hollows around Tartar Bazardjik and 
Philippopolis there are fields of rice. In addition to the 
many products of the land, the harvest of which brings 
down workers every year from the Balkans, East 
Roumelia had formerly extensive trades which supplied 
many parts of the Turkish Empire with woollen stuffs and 
with leather and metal goods. The removal of the 
Turkish population and the customs frontiers have led to 
the decay of these old industries. In this respect, too, the 
country is passing through a difficult period of transition. 
The site of the capital of Eastern Roumelia, Philippo- 
polis, in the centre of the plain, was determined by seven 
rocky syenite hills, washed by the waters of the Maritza, 
and it has remained, ever since it was founded by the 
maker of the Macedonian Empire, the principal place in 
the plain, though its unfavourable situation in regard to the 
more important mountain passes to the north and south, 
has always kept it within fixed limits. Sofia, the capital of 
Bulgaria, stands in a better position in the basin at the 
source of the Isker, and near the hot springs that rise at 
the foot of the majestic Vitosha. Although the narrow 
gorge of the Isker through the Balkans is impassable, 
this point in ancient Serdica is still not only the 
mathematical and hydrographic centre of the main 
peninsula, but also a crossing-place of important lines of 
communication. This fact made so deep an impression 
upon Constantine, who knew and appreciated the country 



THE ILLYRIAN AND BALKAN COUNTRIES 237 

round his home at Nissa more exactly than any other 
ruler of antiquity, that he exclaimed, "Serdica is my Rome," 
and seriously inclined to make that place the capital of the 
empire, until weighty reasons led him to decide upon 
Byzantium. After a long period of neglect, Serdica, which 
was not called by the name of Sofia (after its cathedral, 
now destroyed by an earthquake) until the end of the 
fourteenth century, is reviving again, and when the railway 
in course of construction from Bucharest to Salonica here 
crosses that from Belgrade to Constantinople, the Bulgarian 
capital will recover the importance which it owed of old 
to its position. In regard to the present boundaries of 
the country, the position of the capital seems singularly 
out of the centre. This would no longer be the case if 
the hopes of the Bulgarians for the future possession of 
Macedonia were to be fulfilled even in part. Even now, 
since the inclusion of East Roumelia, the southern slope 
of the Balkan bears a decidedly larger share of the in- 
habitants and of the power of Bulgaria than does the 
northern. Varna, the largest maritime town in Bul- 
garia, will certainly go to decay unless its insecure 
roadstead is strengthened by the formation of a har- 
bour. Its naval importance is distinctly less than that 
of Constanza in the Dobruja, with a mole and harbour. 
This little seaport, which suffered absolute depopula- 
tion even in the wars of the last century, has been 
gaining in activity and promise since the erection of a 
solid bridge over the Danube at Czernavoda linked it 
with the railway system and the capital of Roumania. 

The superiority of Roumania to Bulgaria is shown 
even more plainly than along the sea-coast in its utilisa- 
tion of the Lower Danube, since the acquisition of the 
Dobruja. In all the pairs of towns that have grown up 
at the more important crossing-places of the Danube, the 
Roumanian place is always more active in commerce than 
the Bulgarian, even when its population is smaller. For 
a long time navigation on the Lower Danube was very 
backward. Now, however, great quantities of grain and 
other agricultural produce are carried down, as well as 



238 CENTRAL EUROPE 

wares from the mills and distilleries along the river-banks, 
part going directly to the Black Sea, but the larger portion 
to the river-ports of Braila, Galatz, and Sulina, there to be 
transferred from the river-boats into large sea-going 
vessels. Of these towns, in which sea-traffic comes far 
inland, Braila, where the river, after a long separation, 
gathers the waters into one channel again, above the 
junction with the Sereth, now succeeds in taking the first 
place. This rising centre has taken most of the trade of 
Wallachia from Galatz, which lies, almost entirely 
surrounded by water, between the mouths of the Pruth 
and the Sereth, and is more conveniently placed for the 
Moldau and the Bukovina, which send hither not only 
their farm produce, but also great quantities of timber 
from the Carpathian forests. The trade of these two river- 
towns is carefully fostered by the Roumanian Govern- 
ment. A considerable part of it is in the hands of 
Greek firms ; the Greek merchant service, too, contributes 
a growing contingent of the vessels which come into the 
estuary of Sulina, bringing European manufactured articles 
and coal, and taking away heavy cargoes of the country 
products. The flag most strongly represented in this port 
is still the British, although its proportional superiority 
is being greatly diminished by the efforts of the Danube 
States to get navigation into their own hands. Hungary 
has lately taken an important step forward by the 
establishment of its Levantine merchant service, and 
Roumania is also successfully developing one. 

The river, which favours this entrance of Roumania 
into the commerce of the world, is also a most valuable 
source of livelihood to the people of the country. The 
annual takings of fish in the channels and in the extensive 
lagoons along the banks of the Danube and the sea-shore 
are estimated at from 80,000 to 100,000 tons. 

In the immediate neighbourhood of the reed-beds of 
the delta and the network of islands above Braila, lies the 
driest part of Roumania. The steppes of the Dobruja, 
and the not much more favoured country on the opposite 
western bank of the Danube, form in the centre of the 



THE ILLYRIAN AND BALKAN COUNTRIES 239 

two-winged country a territory of more than 10,000 
square miles, where — excluding the one town Braila — ■ 
there are living but 470,000 persons (47 per square mile). 
This tract of country, a desert subject to alternations of 
excessive heat in summer and storms in winter, emphasises 
the division between Moldavia and Wallachia. 

It is only since the establishment of Roumania as an 
independent state that " the Paris of the East" — as the 
Roumanians rather pretentiously call their capital — has 
risen to the external brilliancy of a royal residence. Its 
situation in the hot and dusty plain makes summer hard to 
endure in it. The court generally retires to Sinaya at the 
foot of the Bucsecs, in the pleasant coolness of a Carpa- 
thian valley, and the Boyars too seek cooler places in the 
country. A short railway journey takes us from the plain 
to the encircling hills with their shady groves of plum 
trees and their vineyards, and beyond these lie the woody 
mountains, from which it is hoped that the future may 
obtain more mineral treasures than those found at present : 
salt and natural oil. The zone of these mineral products 
passes round the outer border of the mountains, and on 
into Moldavia. The towns in it are characterised by a 
strong Jewish admixture. Jassy, the old residence of the 
Hospodars, which lies in a side-valley of the Pruth basin, 
is by far the most important of them, and its pictu- 
resque position and clear mountain streams give it an ad- 
vantage over Bucharest. The roads to Odessa and Galatz 
divide here ; but the main line of communication of the 
Carpathian country follows the Sereth farther to the west 
until it divides into two parts, running to Bucharest and to 
Constanza. 

The carefully laid out system of communication shows, 
like every other department of life in Roumania, an earnest 
effort at advancement. A position of geographical im- 
portance, extensive tracts of fertile country, national unity 
and the energy of the people promise to this state (with 
its 50,600 square miles and its 59,130,000 inhabitants) a 
considerable future. 



240 CENTRAL EUROPE 

Note on Aidhorities. — Two volumes of the work begun under the 
patronage of the Crown Prince Rudolf deal with the Adriatic provinces 
of Austria, while another is devoted to Bosnia and Herzegovina. This 
book, admirably written by authors familiar with the Occupied Territories, 
undoubtedly stands out superior to the mass of literature which has 
grown up around these newly opened countries. 

A description by a single author is expected from Edward Richter. 

The best work about the Balkan countries is Constantine Jirecek's 
Das Fiirstentum Bulgarien, 1891. Spiridion Gopcevic's Serbien unci 
die Serben, 1888, is not to be compared with it. 

The older works of Kanitz are still indispensable. 



CHAPTER XVI 

SOUTH AND CENTRAL GERMANY 

The most important members of the complex mountains 
of Central Europe unite in enclosing an expanse whose 
waters escape in two great rivers at Bingen and at Passau, 
whence their courses cross rocky barriers the original 
dangers of which have only been fully overcome by the 
engineering skill of the nineteenth century. Apart from 
these two waterways, the mountain framework of South 
Germany lies open at several large gaps to communication 
with its neighbours, whose influence has been all the 
more strongly felt because South Germany, notwith- 
standing the prevalence of flat formations, does not make 
a united whole, but is, on the contrary, conspicuously 
divided. The south, up to the Danube, is filled by the 
German Alpine foreland, the west by the Upper Rhine 
valley ; between the two prevail the terraces of South 
Germany with the Neckar and the Main flowing through 
them ; and the three sections, like a piece of a fan 
whose ribs are represented by the Black Forest and the 
Rauhe Alb, meet between Schaffhausen and Basle. Neither 
the distribution of the Germanic races nor the political 
demarcation coincides with this division of the land. 
The Alpine foreland was only occupied by the Bavarians 
up to the Lech ; there began the domain of the Alemanni 
or Swabians, which comprised the Alpine foreland to 
beyond the Aar, the Upper Rhine valley and the moun- 
tains round it northward to the Neckar and including 
the basin of the Neckar. Finally, the Franks filled the 
Palatinate, the piece of the Upper Rhine valley lying 
beyond Swabia, and the whole Main basin. This posi- 
tion of the Franks between the tribes of South and 



242 



CENTRAL EUROPE 



North Germany might appear originally to offer a pro- 
mise of uniting and ruling the whole, but, later on, it 
caused them to have difficulty in maintaining indepen- 
dence even within their own borders. The very districts of 
Franconia and Swabia, in which Otto von Freising (1150) 
saw the firmest support of the German Empire, were 
those most broken up in the Middle Ages by political 
divisions. Nowhere were separate communities, free 
towns, castles, and monasteries, walled in and armed 
against one another, more numerous. These districts, 
which were the inmost and safest part of the Empire, and 
which were not driven to hold together by any pressure 
of great outward danger, carried the feudal system to such 
an extreme that the territory was broken into little pieces. 
The western part fell a prey to France ; the fragments 
of the other parts passed through all the stages of hum- 
drum comfort, absurdity, and misery that belong to 
extremely small states, until the wars that followed the 
French Revolution swept them together and recast them 
into a few states of moderate size, which, however, enjoyed 
no protection on their exposed side, until the conquest of 
Alsace and Lorraine. The following are the territories at 
present existing : the kingdoms of Bavaria and Wiirtem- 
berg, the grand-duchies of Baden and Hesse, and Alsace 
Lorraine, besides the little principality of Hohenzollern 
which has been Prussian since 1849. Geographical pre- 
sentation cannot conveniently follow the political boun- 
daries, but would shut out Bavarian Vogtland and Upper 
Hesse, and include in place of them the Prussian district at 
the southern foot of theTaunus from Hanau to the Rheingau, 
thus giving to South Germany a slightly smaller area (50,800 
square miles), and a little more population, 13 J millions. 

The most genial part of the Alpine Foreland of 

Germany is the shores of the Lake of Constance, 

dominated by the glorious Alps, and girdled 

The Alpine by vineyards and orchards. The course 

Germany* ° F of hist0r 7 has Prevented Constance from 

gaining all the advantages that naturally 

belong to its position, and has permitted it to enjoy 



SOUTH AND CENTRAL GERMANY 243 

only a slight superiority over the other towns of the 
lake. For traffic between Germany and Switzerland, 
which has to cross the lake, the towns in Wiirtem- 
berg and Bavaria are more conveniently situated. As 
we go from them northward into the tableland, woods 
and heath grow more extensive, and villages — in Bavaria 
single farmhouses — lie farther apart, with wide pastures 
and cornfields between. The larger towns are always 
linked to the deeply cut furrows of the rapid rivers. 

Augusta Vindelicorum was the first capital. It col- 
lected the traffic of the Roman roads that crossed the 
Alps between the Spliigen and the Brenner, and 
offered to the traffic of the whole Alpine foreland a 
central point about equidistant from Geneva and from 
Vienna. The full Alpine rivers of the Lech and the 
Wertach, which formed a natural protection by sur- 
rounding the site and uniting below it, no doubt fixed 
the place of the Roman colony ; while, in the Middle 
Ages, they, and the smaller streams running from the 
well-watered rubble of the Lechfeld, served to sup- 
port the busy and diligent industries which made Augs- 
burg a wealthy town holding a position of import- 
ance in international trade. Situated on nearly the same 
meridian as Verona and Nuremberg, Augsburg was well 
fitted to become the agent of trade between Venice and 
Central Germany. The most direct continuation of the 
Brenner road had its terminus here, and to the north 
across the Danube the deep valley of the Ries opened, 
in which the roads to the Neckar and to the Upper Main 
divided. It was not until the internal conflicts of 
Germany after the Reformation that this free town 
dropped behind as compared with other places carefully 
fostered by their princes. Augsburg is, indeed, thanks to 
its abundant water-power, once more a great centre of 
the textile trades, and, thanks to its situation, once more 
a great nucleus of traffic ; but it is only the third town 
of Bavaria, and is quite overshadowed by the capital. 

Munich is situated upon the field of gravel brought 
down by the melting water of Alpine glaciers. ' It was 
17 



244 CENTRAL EUROPE 

recommended to the Bavarian dukes by its central posi- 
tion between the Lech and the Inn, between the Alps 
and the Danube. Even before the Thirty Years' War this 
was considered as one of the most beautiful towns in 
Germany. But its development into a great city belongs 
entirely to the nineteenth century. The recasting of the 
whole system of communication in the railway epoch 
enabled the Bavarian Government to raise Munich into 
an important centre of traffic, and especially to fix here 
the crossing of the highways from Paris to Vienna, and 
from Berlin to Rome. At the same time, Munich de- 
veloped its manufactures, and a fresh impulse has been 
given to this advance by the utilisation of the Isar's water- 
power. The first place as to quantity of production is 
occupied by the great breweries. The manufacture of 
machinery and utilisation of the raw materials — marble 
and wood — from the mountains have also made great 
strides. In a town where 1700 artists are at work, manu- 
factures can hardly fail to be touched by some ennobling 
breath of ideality. Science, too, has been cared for, and 
the important applied branches of it constantly find 
themselves faced by difficult technical tasks and by the 
problems arising out of ever-new methods of employing 
the forces of nature. Munich has thus become a centre 
of civilisation of universal importance, and far outstripped 
the development of the towns on the banks of the Danube. 

A little below the mouth of the Iller arose Ulm, the 
starting-point of navigation, and the place from which the 
Geislingen path carried the Alpine traffic into the Neckar 
basin. The now completed wonderful tower of the Gothic 
cathedral, the highest stone building on the Continent 
(528 feet high), stands like a proud memorial to the 
might and pride of the citizens in the old free town, and 
looks down on the ring of forts which testifies that the 
importance of this position is by no means entirely a thing 
of the past. 

The northernmost bend of the Danube offered a still 
happier site. Here as early as the sixth century 
Ratisbon was the seat of government of the Bavarians. 



SOUTH AND CENTRAL GERMANY 245 

From this point began the advance of German coloni- 
sation towards the east, and hence trade took possession 
of the Danube. But a river that ran into foreign 
countries was not in those days a safe roadway for far- 
reaching enterprises. From the era of the crusades the 
sphere of influence of the Danube town diminished. The 
more resolutely it defended its independence as a free 
city, the more determined became the endeavours of the 
dukes of Bavaria to find for themselves another centre of 
power. So successful were they, that long before the 
last meeting of the German Diet — of which it had be- 
come the permanent seat — Ratisbon had fallen far behind 
Munich. Its reunion with Bavaria came too late to change 
this state of affairs, though the development of the railway 
system, and the improved navigability of the Danube, 
have breathed new life into the town. It is now the 
capital of the Upper Palatinate. 

The boundary by which the Alpine foreland and the 
Upper Palatinate, the waters of which likewise drain to 
the Black Sea, are divided from the right- 
hand tributaries of the Upper Rhine, con- The Dis J ricts 

. V t 4. U A oftheNeckar 

sists, not in the sharp line of a watershed, AND THE m ain 

but in a broad sparsely peopled belt of 
Jurassic limestones and ill-watered plateaus, the Swabian 
portion of which only obtained water enough for the sub- 
sistence of the inhabitants by means of irrigation works 
on a large scale that were carried out in the years between 
1876 and 1885. The uninviting character of these table- 
lands increased the density of population in the villages 
and little towns on the Neckar. Here subdivision of 
property and intensity of cultivation are carried to the 
highest possible pitch. The increase of population — unless 
it swells the stream of emigration — can only find subsist- 
ence by subserving the manifold industrial employments 
by which the whole country is permeated. These have 
brought fresh life to many a little old historical town, 
but have not created any of the large, cheerless, smoky 
towns that generally rise upon coalfields. An old Roman 



246 CENTRAL EUROPE 

town once lay in the warm and friendly valley-opening of 
Cannstadt, which was formerly reckoned as the starting- 
place of navigation on the Neckar. Now, however, it is 
but a suburb of the capital of the country, Stuttgart, which 
lies, with its splendid squares and web of streets pressed 
in between vineyards, in an enclosed valley to the left, 
situated amid beautiful and picturesque scenery but off 
the natural line of traffic. There was nothing in the 
nature of the locality to favour the growth of a large 
town. But the very distance and independence of Augs- 
burg, and of Ulm, the natural capital of Swabia, and the 
lack of any predominant centre of population in the Neckar 
country, made it easier for the rulers of Wurtemberg to 
raise the place they had chosen. The line from Paris to 
Vienna has had to leave the Neckar valley and make a 
long loop in order to touch Stuttgart at all, and modern 
engineering has made an outlet at the southern end of the 
valley's cul-de-sac. But the main causes of Stuttgart's 
prosperity are the activity of the Swabian people, concen- 
trated at this point by their rulers, and the skill with which 
branches of industry that do not depend so very much 
upon locality have been transferred hither. Stuttgart is 
one of the leading seats of the book trade of Germany, and 
of the industries arising out of that trade. The thorough- 
ness and productivity of the people have brought the town 
successfully through times when, in the eighteenth century, 
those in power were ill disposed towards it, and when two 
efforts were made to set aside Stuttgart and to remove the 
royal residence to Ludwigsburg, a hunting castle in 
the beech woods of the plateau on the left bank of the 
Neckar. The town of Stuttgart is now so large and 
so brilliant, and has become so attractive a place of 
abode, that any suggestion of the kind is no longer to be 
apprehended. Among the other towns of the Neckar, all 
far outstripped by Stuttgart, Heilbronn is the most 
flourishing ; and its trade is assisted by the steam navi- 
gation, coming up to this point, and by the easy crossway 
communications between the Rhine valley and Franconia. 
Below Heilbronn the Neckar gathers together all the 



SOUTH AND CENTRAL GERMANY 247 

waters of the Swabian basin before entering the gorges of 
the Odenwald. 

Leaving the dense settlements of the Neckar valley, 
we have to cross the Franconian Height, a sparsely 
inhabited tableland on the east, chiefly occupied by 
agriculture, before we come again to a large town. The 
landscape round Nuremberg is without charm ; the sandy 
plains are covered with Scotch firs, and can only with 
difficulty be brought under cultivation. To the mediaeval 
traffic, however, the crossing of highways was favourable. 
In its buildings and art treasures the old town still pre- 
serves eloquent memorials of its past history. No melan- 
choly elegies, however, finish this glorious history. 
Nuremberg's trading inclinations have outlived its inde- 
pendence as a free town ; it has grown up into a great 
modern manufacturing place, though neither a river of any 
importance nor a bed of fossil fuel was at hand to afford 
sources of power. In metal-work, in the manufacture of 
blacklead, glass, and wooden ware, Nuremberg stands at 
the head of all the towns of South Germany, and elec- 
trical works of world-wide reputation have now been 
established there in addition to the great machine factories. 
This independent evolution of its own powers has for the 
second time brought Nuremberg far ahead of the epis- 
copal towns of Franconia ; the venerable Bamberg, which 
lies a little away from the Main, with the hills of its 
churches and convents adorned by hop-gardens, while 
their feet are encircled by productive vegetable gardens ; 
and Wurzburg, where the bells that tinkle for mass are 
answered by the gay songs of students inspired by the 
best wine that grows on the banks of the Main. Bam- 
berg is the most rural of the middle-sized towns of 
Germany ; Wurzburg is gradually being drawn into the 
net of industrial competition. While Bamberg is but one 
of several spots by which, as well as by other ways more 
to the east, traffic passes from Franconia to Saxony, 
Wurzburg is the only crossing-place of the Main for 
communication between Swabia and Thuringia. The 
navigable value of the Main is diminished by its puzzling 



248 CENTRAL EUROPE 

windings, and by the small volume of water in summer- 
time. Thus, in spite of all the efforts to strengthen the 
navigation of the middle Main above the Spessart, it serves 
for little at Wiirzburg, except for a considerable flotation 
of timber. 

Nature has laid no precious treasure in the lap of the 
mountains that encircle the warm lowland of the Upper 
Rhine ; she has only crowned their heads 
The Lowland with forests the most beautiful of all Ger- 
of the Upper . ' ;1 . . . ,. r . , 

Rhine. many. Amid these wide hunting-fields 

arose mediaeval monasteries, which became 
centres of settlements and of gradual clearances in the 
forest. They drew their subsistence from a laborious and 
not very profitable cultivation of the ground, and from 
the forest, the trunks of which were floated down on the 
swollen tributary streams to the great river. It was the 
eighteenth century which first gave to the increasing 
population of the Black Forest those various industries 
which the nineteenth has brought into a condition of 
flourishing development. At the northern end, Pforzheim 
is the centre of a jewellery trade, which is also carried on 
in neighbouring villages. In the centre of the Black 
Forest, around Furtwangen, the famous clockmaking 
industry nourishes. In the highest parts of the moun- 
tains, about the Feldberg, many villages are occupied 
with brushmaking. In the valleys of the Wutach and the 
Wiese, which open to the south, the textile trade, espe- 
cially in cotton, has made great way, supported by water 
power, and encouraged by the example of Northern 
Switzerland. All these busy places, however, are oases 
of civilisation in the great still woodland. The fresh air 
of the forests breathes up to the immediate neighbour- 
hood of the thickly peopled western border of mountains, 
where vineyards, orchards, and tobacco plantations stand 
on the loess-covered hills, around rich villages and busy 
townships animated by trade. This outer belt at the foot 
of the mountains, marked by density of population and great 
subdivision of property, is generally succeeded by a damp 



SOUTH AND CENTRAL GERMANY 249 

country, rich in meadow-land, the waters of which mostly 
run northward, and are apt to be obstructed by accumu- 
lations of silt, and so to form swamps, which can only 
be reclaimed by care and attention. Broad plains of 
gravel and considerable woods divide these damp hollows 
— which were formerly erroneously supposed to be traces 
of an old easterly course of the Rhine — from the strip in 
which, before its regulation, that river used, like a capri- 
cious tyrant, to change its course from one part to 
another, and threaten destruction to the settlements along 
its banks. A similar valley formation occurs on the left 
bank in Upper Alsace, where the 111 runs parallel with the 
Rhine, and divides the woody country along the main river 
from the richly cultivated foot of the mountains. 

These parallel tracts of country, so essentially different 
in their nature, have had a decisive influence not only 
upon the divisions and the fortunes of the rural settle- 
ments, but also upon the position of the important towns. 
The low-lying plain of the Upper Rhine, with the kindly 
water-power of the river, and with the great roads dividing 
at its northern and southern ends, offered several admir- 
able sites. The Romans reached the Rhine first by the 
Burgundian gate, and the first Roman town upon the 
Rhine, the colony of Raurica, the predecessor of Basle, 
came into existence in front of that opening. Then, 
when the whole Rhine became the frontier line of the 
Empire, the left bank was bordered by the camps of 
the legions, and by the towns that grew up near to 
them. The most important of these was Mogontiacum, 
opposite to the confluence of the Main. The mouth of 
another Roman way into the upper valley of the Rhine 
was marked by Argentoratum, on the 111, the germ of 
Strassburg. The erection of Roman fortresses along the 
Rhine gave to the left bank the advantage of a rather 
greater stability in the sites of its chief towns. All the 
smaller towns along the western mountain border — 
and for a long time those on the 111, too — remained 
much inferior to the three old foundations, upon the 
sites of which three great bishoprics grew up in the 



250 CENTRAL EUROPE 

Middle Ages. In the seventeenth century the bar- 
barous warfare of Louis XIV. destroyed the towns of 
the Palatinate on both sides of the river, especially 
Heidelberg, which had arisen at the point where the 
Neckar emerges from the mountains, in a situation similar 
to that of Freiburg in the Breisgau, and of Frankfort-on- 
the-Main. The caprice of a despot next created the royal 
residence of Carlsruhe in a barren, sandy woodland. As 
this town grew up after the days of the Rhenish Con- 
federation, so did Darmstadt, the not much better situated 
capital of a little state, both developing at the expense of 
neighbouring towns of greater natural importance. On 
the whole, the right side of the Upper Valley of the Rhine 
has shown itself the more progressive in the growth of its 
towns in the nineteenth century ; the towns of Alsace were 
actually dwindling as long as they continued to be frontier 
towns of France, and Strassburg has only begun to flourish 
once more since the whole extent of the Upper Rhine Valley,, 
filled by the German nation, has again become an integral 
economic part of the German Empire. 

The complexities of town development that arose from 
the unsteady course of history may best be comprehended 
if we consider the different sections of the lowland of the 
Upper Rhine without regard to the political boundaries of 
the various groups. One of the most suitable situations 
for a town in all Europe is occupied by Basle. While it 
was a member of the German Empire, Basle was large 
and flourishing. Its severance (in 1501) no doubt spared 
the town many troubles, but also set narrowed limits to 
its future development. The centre of traffic and intel- 
lectual life thus lost has been replaced in that uppermost 
portion of the Rhine Valley of which the Kaiserstuhl may 
be considered the boundary, by towns growing up in 
situations of less natural importance — Miilhausen, on the 
111, and on the Rhine and Rhone Canal, which is the chief 
seat of the cotton trade in Central Europe ; and Freiburg 
in the Breisgau, a university town standing amid vine- 
yards in a beautiful curve of the surrounding mountains. 

The middle part of the Upper Rhenish lowland finds 



SOUTH AND CENTRAL GERMANY 251 

its natural capital in Strassburg. The French, who made 
every effort to bind Alsace firmly to their own country, 
made Strassburg the terminus of the two canals which 
connect the Seine (by way of the Marne) and the Rhone 
(by way of the Doubs) with the Rhine, but all their en- 
deavours did not succeed in bringing back to Strassburg 
its old prosperity. The old encircling wall, which sufficed 
during the whole of the French rule to embrace the terri- 
tory of the town, has now fallen, and new spacious suburbs 
have gone beyond it. Far outside the town lies the circle 
of new forts, commanding also the passage of the Rhine. 
That river itself, which was so long only a barrier to the 
economic development of the town, is now once more the 
medium of its increasing commercial activity. Strassburg 
is making every effort, by improving the navigable channel, 
to draw up to itself a greater share in the traffic of the 
Rhine. A great harbour is being constructed for its recep- 
tion, and this may perhaps become the point of departure 
for a new waterway to Basle. Nor does intellectual life 
fall behind in this general movement of advance. It finds 
its focus in a university of high repute. 

The eastern continuation of the road that here 
touches the Rhine lies not so much in the valley of 
the Kinzig — through the picturesque glens of which 
the Black Forest railway now runs to the Lake of 
Constance — as northward, where the line from Paris 
to Vienna passes round the Black Forest, amid the 
hill country of Pforzheim. It thus touches the capital 
of Baden, a rank long lost by the famous seat of hot 
springs which gave its name to the whole country, 
drawing together the wealthy of the civilised world by 
a combination of hill scenery and luxurious comfort ; 
a rank lost also by Durlach, which stands at the entrance 
to the best road into Swabia. In 171 5 a Margrave 
who was angry with the people of Durlach, built him- 
self a new castle in the midst of the fir woods of the 
Rhenish plain, and desired to make this castle a centre 
from which the main streets of a new court-town were 
to start. Such was the beginning of Carlsruhe. The 



252 CENTRAL EUROPE 

concentration of law courts and government offices, the 
junction of the railways, and a connection with a new 
town on the Rhine, Maxau, succeeded in establishing 
a city here, which obtained importance as a centre of 
traffic and manufacture. Even now, however, Carlsruhe 
falls conspicuously behind Strassburg, its counterpart to 
the west of the Rhine, and even behind another town of 
its own country. 

The bareness of the banks of the Rhine, which bear no 
town of any size for more than 140 miles below Basle, 
ends in the Palatinate. The old and venerable free 
towns of Spires and Worms, whose cathedrals still recall 
their former glory, have never recovered from the de- 
struction in which the barbarity of the Rot Soleil in- 
volved them ; but between them at the confluence of 
the Neckar, Mannheim has arisen from its ashes and 
become the greatest river-port of South Germany. A 
share in the great concourse of traffic that presses into 
this basin, laid out and furnished with every appliance 
of modern engineering, has been secured to the left 
bank of the river — belonging to Bavaria — by the foun- 
dation of Ludwigshafen. From the point of view of 
economic geography, these two towns form but one 
great centre of population. It is evident that the ter- 
minus of the Rhine's mercantile navigation, which used 
to be at Mayence, has moved up, with the improve- 
ment of the river, to Mannheim. Here are delivered 
the consignments of grain from over-sea, of American and 
Russian petroleum, and of coal from the Lower Rhine, 
required by South Germany ; while wood and salt, 
which are floated down the Neckar, stand at the head 
of the exports. This powerful commercial position 
is subject to severe competition, not only from Frank- 
fort and the growing efforts of Strassburg, but also 
from the endeavours of the Hanse Towns, which are 
supported by the State railways, to attract to themselves 
a part of the trade of the Rhine delta. But transit is 
so rapid and so easy on the fine river that it keeps 
ahead even of strong competition. Whether it is possible 



SOUTH AND CENTRAL GERMANY 253 

to carry the Rhine trade higher up the stream must 
still be proved by experience. For the present, the 
towns at the mouth of the Neckar are in a condition 
of cheerful advance ; and any observer who, amid the 
busy bustle of trade and manufacture that marks these 
recent centres, misses the historic charm belonging to 
the other leading cities of the Rhine, need only follow 
the Neckar to the opening of the mountains. There, 
above " old Heidelberg," frown the ivy-wreathed ruins 
of the castle of the Electors Palatine — a serious and 
melancholy warning to the German youths who flock 
hither that when they become men their duty is to 
preserve the unity of their strengthened fatherland. 

Mayence has been deposed, in spite of its extremely 
promising situation, from the supremacy which it en- 
joyed for centuries, and has retained only the honour, 
often dearly bought, of being the protector of Germany's 
most favoured district. But though Darmstadt, in its 
character of the capital of a little state, and the seat 
of its law courts and technical college, is now increasing 
more quickly in population ; and though an artificial 
concentration of railway traffic and growing industrial 
activity are driving away the dulness that used to gape 
at the visitor from the empty streets of this court-town r 
Mayence will still remain for some years to come the 
largest town in Hesse, and will continue to be its most 
important centre of industrial life. 

Wiesbaden, standing amid hot springs at the southern 
foot of the Taunus, and nestling among the green 
of luxuriant gardens, competes in the antiquity of its 
fame with Mayence. It is a large and luxurious town, 
spacious and full of gay villas, the favourite rendezvous of 
the great and the wealthy from all parts of Europe, the 
most international spot of hospitable Germany. From it a 
belt of rich and pleasant country, with vineyards, orchards, 
pretty villages and towns, runs at the foot of the Taunus 
as far as Frankfort. 

The situation of Frankfort, where in the Middle Ages 
the Germans from all parts met for the election of their 



254 CENTRAL EUROPE 

King, has won new importance long after the days of the 
Confederation ; indeed, it has only fully developed since 
a strong Government arose to make full use of its natural 
advantages. The commercial importance of Frankfort, 
which is one of the richest towns in Germany, and has 
an influential stock exchange, is shown in the present day 
by the new docks, and by the immense railway station, 
which receives the traffic of eight great lines. Frank- 
fort had, ever since very old times, been one of the 
most beautiful towns in Germany ; and it is now, by 
the inclusion of great suburbs, also one of the largest. 
It has become so partly owing to the trading activities 
of " the Golden International," who is particularly 
numerous in the native place of the Rothschilds, and 
partly owing to its considerable industrial population. 
The latter side of its economic life is served by the 
towns of Offenbach and Hanau, lying in favoured 
spots a little higher up the Main, the one being 
perhaps the first town in Germany for the manufac- 
ture of fancy leather goods, and the other noted for 
its jewellery. Thus all departments of human life, from 
the most arduous labour to the easiest leisure, find their 
places in this garden of Germany at the southern foot 
of the Taunus, and combine to form a delightful picture 
of peaceful but powerfully protected happiness. Along 
the short river reaches of the Rhine and Main between 
Offenbach and Biebrich 550,000 persons are living upon 
230 square miles. The impression produced by this 
highly favoured district is doubly strong, because to the 
south of the Main it ends suddenly, at the edge of 
extensive sandy woods of Scotch fir. 

The western outlets of the Lowland of the Upper 
Rhine are by no means more difficult than the passes of 
the Black Forest. Yet the Vosges and the mountains of 
the Palatinate always formed a more effective barrier. 
It is noteworthy that while the German inhabitants of 
Alsace, the Alemanni, came from the east, Lorraine, on 
the contrary, was taken possession of by the Franks from 
the north. They found here so strong a centre of Roman 



SOUTH AND CENTRAL GERMANY 255 

population, that as soon as divisions according to language 
began to arise, the Romanic tongue had preponderance 
throughout the greater part of Lorraine. As long ago as 
the year 1000, Metz stood in a French-speaking territory. 
Even at that time the frontier line of language ran 
between the French Nied and the German Nied, and 
crossed the Moselle half way between Metz and Thion- 
ville. The conquest by France in 1552 of the three 
bishoprics of Metz, Toul, and Verdun, which belonged 
to the German Empire, brought the frontier of the 
country into nearer agreement with the division of 
tongues. It was not until the seventeenth century that 
France extended its conquests far into German country. 
Only considerations of the better safeguarding of the 
western frontier against the French desire for revenge 
induced the leaders of German policy in 1871 to retain 
the • strong position of Metz, which has now mainly 
become a German military town amid French-speaking 
villages. 

Economically, four tracts of country are plainly to be 
distinguished in German Lorraine. (1) The east, up to the 
valley of the Saar, unites agriculture and various forms of 
manufacture, in particular a highly developed glass trade ; 
the little industrial towns of the Saar valley enjoy the 
advantage of fuel near at hand, which is brought up 
cheaply by water ; the coalfields of the Saar extend into 
Lorraine at Forbach. (2) Between the Saar and the Moselle 
lies a thinly-peopled plateau, which, however, contains the 
great salt bed of Chateau Salins. (3) The greater warmth 
of the Moselle valley fits it for the cultivation of the finer 
fruits, although the vine does but moderately well ; high 
cultivation of the land is here the foundation of pro- 
sperity. (4) The plateau to the west of the Moselle 
is the iron district of Lorraine, the productiveness of 
which, under the freer mining law of Germany, has 
increased tenfold since 1871, and like the neigh- 
bouring district of Luxemburg, is taking an increasing 
part in the manufacture of the ore into cast and rolled 
iron. In its extensive iron-mining, in the general char- 



256 CENTRAL EUROPE 

acter of its landscape, its social conditions, and the density 
of population (217 to the square mile), Luxemburg (a 
territory of 1000 square miles) most obviously corresponds 
to German Lorraine. 

The basins of Bohemia and South Germany allow 

their waters, which run northward, to escape, after having 

united, by way of the narrow outlet valleys 

„ tt of the Elbe and Rhine. These two are the 

AND rilLL 

Country of only rivers which pass through the full 

Central Ger- breadth of the barrier of the mountains of 

many, with its Central Germany. The unity, however, 

Bays of Low- Q f ^is belt of mountains, which runs 

LAND 

across Germany from the Meuse to the 
Vistula, lies not only in the continuity of their eleva- 
tions, which is broken but twice, but also in certain 
characteristic features common to the whole zone of 
uplands. Their height, which, on the whole, increases 
towards the east, is sufficient, near the ocean on the 
west, no less than in the interior of the continent on 
the east, to draw considerable deposits of moisture 
from the atmosphere, so that the watercourses, which 
rise amid them, receive considerable, though indeed vari- 
able, strength and abundance, and the navigability of the 
rivers, which they unite to form in the plains, is assured. 
The mountains are rich in timber and in excellent build- 
ing stone, which is valued in the diluvial plain that lies 
in front of the mountains ; some parts are rich also in 
ores, and the northern border in particular often contains 
great beds of fossilised fuel. To this wealth of the moun- 
tains acceded the fertility of the neighbouring plains and 
the liberty of movement. Of Germany's thirty largest 
towns, sixteen lie in the belt at the foot of the mountains. 
This line of Central German towns crossing the Lower 
Rhine from Aix to Breslau forms the heart of a zone 
of maximum density of population ; while another strip 
of thickly peopled country, running in a nearly meri- 
dional direction, follows the line of the Rhine from Basle 
to the mouth of the Ruhr. If we were to try and draw 



SOUTH AND CENTRAL GERMANY 257 

a border line, which could be but an arbitrary one, 
between the mountain country of Central Germany and 
the North German lowland, the best way would be to 
follow the line of the projected canal from the Elbe to 
the Rhine. The eastern end of this line follows the 
most southerly of the great valleys (see p. 103), that one 
whose continuation beyond the Elbe carries us from 
Wittenberg along the Black Elster to Lusatia and through 
the marshes of Lower Silesia to the Oder in Middle Silesia. 
After that the border is marked by the Malapane. Be- 
tween this northern boundary, whose western continuation 
runs pretty nearly along the line from Homburg to Maes- 
tricht, and the northern boundary of South Germany (see 
p. 242), described above, lies the central mountain country 
of the interior of the German Empire, an area of 56,000 
square miles, with 23 \ millions of inhabitants. In other 
words, the average density of population in this large 
district exceeds that of the Upper Rhenish lowland, the 
most thickly peopled part of South Germany. There are, 
of course, very great variations of density in both regions. 

On the southern border of the Taunus and the Huns- 

riick grow noble vines, that testify to the magical power 

of the sun by which the grapes upon the 

black schistose soil are ripened. Towards ~ HE 0UNTAIN 
, , . , , . , r . ,. Country of 

the west the yield of the vine diminishes THE lower 

with the rise of the land, but there, in Rhine, its 
the neighbourhood of the Saar, the coal- Valleys, and 
field of Saarbriicken, which extends into the THE lNLET 0F 
Palatinate and into Lorraine, has given rise 
not to any large towns, but to a belt of populous dis- 
tricts whose mines supply, not so much derivative in- 
dustries growing up at the pit's mouth, as the needs 
of a wide area extending into Switzerland and Italy. 
The transport is effected not entirely by railways, but 
partly by the little river Saar, which has been rendered 
navigable by canalisation. The freights of coal go almost 
exclusively up the stream to the Rhine and Marne Canal, 
not down to the Moselle. Treves stands in a hollow of 



258 CENTRAL EUROPE 

the old schistose mountains, just where the Moselle 
begins to enter the higher country. Its greatness, how- 
ever, belongs to the past, to the time of the Roman 
Empire, which regarded the preservation of the Rhine 
frontier as its most serious duty, and required a seat of 
rule behind the centre of that frontier. The possession 
of splendid Roman buildings from that period is the one 
title of Treves to fame. 

Coblenz (Confluentes), situated in the heart of the 
mountains, about the middle of the Rhine's picturesque 
gorge, gains increased importance from the fact that, just 
above, the Lahn also comes to join the principal river in 
its fruitful valley basin. While the valley of the Rhine 
offers to our admiration not only its rocky banks, castles, 
little towns, and villages, but also an easy and actively 
utilised medium of traffic, nothing but small loads of 
building stone and ore are carried down by the Lahn, 
which travels past pleasant towns and the baths of Ems, 
whose springs are the most famous of the many scattered 
over the northern slope of the Taunus. Once again the 
Rhine adorns itself with all the charms of nature and 
of romance before emerging at Bonn into the gradually 
widening bay of flat country about Cologne. 

The largest town upon the Rhine arose at the junction 
of a western highway from the Seine, Sambre, and 
Meuse, with a southern way which continued the road 
from Lyons to Treves through a depression of the 
Eifel. Cologne, at first an encampment of the Romans, 
then a town, became later on a royal seat of the Franks. 
The subsequent growth of Cologne was, however, owing 
rather to the draught of the river, which is here suffi- 
cient even for sea-going vessels of the smaller sort. The 
trade with England, begun as early as the eleventh 
century, raised it from the position of an archbishopric, 
"the German Rome" filled with splendid ecclesiastical 
buildings, and gave it strength to become a flourishing free 
community. As the port of the German Rhine country, 
it spread the net of its communications as far eastward 
as the lands extended which had been colonised by 



SOUTH AND CENTRAL GERMANY 259 

Germans, and southward over the Alps as far as Milan 
and Venice, distributing not only foreign wares, but also 
the products of its own industry, and especially of flour- 
ishing spinning, weaving, and dye works. The sixteenth 
century brought a decay of the town's prosperity, owing 
to the disturbance of its communication with the sea 
during the Dutch war for freedom and to the rise of 
the free Netherlands. Impoverished and reduced, it was 
swallowed up by the French Revolution. Only on its 
inclusion in the State of Prussia did the town awaken to 
new life. The river front of the new and greater Cologne, 
which is six miles long, has been completely transformed 
by the construction of docks, which receive the rapidly 
growing trade and are in direct communication with 
London and with the most important sea-towns of the 
North and Baltic Seas. 

The industrial activity which fills the suburbs of Cologne 
and the neighbouring independent towns on the right bank 
— in particular Miihlheim — is an outpost of the greatest 
workshop of German industry. No other district of the 
same size in Central Europe has a population of such great 
density. A territory of 1000 square miles, enclosed by 
Munchen-Gladbach, Crefeld, Dortmund, Iserlohn, Rem- 
scheid, and Diisseldorf, may easily be marked out to 
contain nearly 3,000,000 inhabitants. The last forty-five 
miles of the course of the Ruhr are cut into the vast 
series of strata of a coalfield, and borings through the 
gradually thickening upper deposits have demonstrated 
that these beds continue northward on both sides of the 
Emscher as far as the latitude of Hamm. Of the 800 
square miles of its total extent, 460 are being worked, 
and employ 150,000 miners. The coal obtained serves 
the needs of an important export trade. The great 
harbours of Ruhrort, Duisburg, and Hochfeld deal with 
larger quantities of merchandise (more than 10,000,000 
tons) than any other inland towns of Europe, the 
greater proportion by far going up-stream. The Dort- 
mund and Ems Canal has recently opened another out- 
let to the North Sea, and preparations are now being 
18 



260 CENTRAL EUROPE 

made to relieve the railways of their vast burden of coal 
by building a canal to the Weser and the Elbe. But 
however great the increase in the exportation of coal, the 
chief centre of its consumption will still continue to be 
formed by great manufactures carried on in the coalfield 
itself and its immediate neighbourhood. The immense 
ironworks between the Ruhr and the Emscher have, in 
twenty or thirty years, raised a few small old towns like 
Essen and Dortmund into cities of over 100,000 inhabi- 
tants and, assisted by a very close network of com- 
munications, have made them centres of the busy industry 
that prevails in the numerous lesser towns (Muhlheim, 
Bochum, Witten). The requirements of so large a body 
of population give rise in turn to fresh branches of pro- 
duction — the extensive brewing trade of Dortmund, for 
example. The statistics of motor-power would place 
the town of Dortmund, the twenty-seventh in the empire, 
in the second place, immediately after Berlin. Hagen,. 
on the south bank of the Ruhr, is chiefly occupied with 
the processes of preparation of iron on a large scale. In 
the basin of the Lenne fine metal-work is carried on at 
Iserlohn and Altena, where not only is iron made into 
wire, needles, and pens, but there are also foundries of 
brass and German silver. The valley of the Wupper is 
filled with especially varied occupations. This little river 
makes a bend towards the north, and then, turning south- 
ward again, falls into the Rhine a little below Cologne, 
very nearly on the same latitude as its source. Some 
of its northerly reaches divide the two old towns of 
Solingen and Remschied, famous for their cutlery. The 
northernmost part of the curved valley, however, is occu- 
pied by the long line of the twin towns of Barmen 
and Elberfeld, for which their highly developed textile in- 
dustries (cotton, wool, and mixed silk and cotton) have 
won the name of the " German Manchester." The western 
continuation of this valley leads to the town of Diisseldorf, 
on the Rhine, which serves as an outlet for its goods. 
Diisseldorf has become the seat of considerable and varied 
manufactures, and has not lost the agreeable aspect and 



SOUTH AND CENTRAL GERMANY 261 

gentle refinement of a little residence-town. As the home 
of the Academy of Arts, this place is the chief guardian of 
the ideal in an extensive district of prosaic utilitarianism. 
This is the only existing example upon the Rhine of an 
old centre of population having passed from one bank 
to the other. It is in a certain degree the successor of 
Neuss, an old Roman town (Novassium) on the left 
bank, that lost its importance when the Rhine, which 
used to make a wide curve to the left and so touch it, 
had its course shortened and removed to a distance of 
two miles. 

The considerable trade carried on in the neighbour- 
hood of Aix-la-Chapelle depends upon its own supply of coal. 
In addition to ironworks, and zinc and lead foundries, 
there are extensive glassworks and a many-sided textile 
trade, amid which an old established cloth manufacture 
preserves its reputation in a modern form. How different 
is the life that fills this city to-day from that which moved 
about its springs in the Roman period, or that which filled 
the imperial palace and the court of Charlemagne. 

Besides Aix, a number of busy lesser towns stand on 
the borders of the Lower Rhenish highland. A short 
transition, however, leads from this animated region to 
the thinly peopled Eifel. Here are districts where 
hardly a hundred persons can be reckoned to the square 
mile. 

Nature has not dowered the mountain country of 

the Weser so richly as the lands on the two sides of the 

Rhine, and has neither destined it to be 

the scene of such great political organisa- Hesse > the 

,, , . £ -j j j Weser Moun- 

tions nor the basis of so many-sided and _,„„„ ATlTT . 

J TAINS, AND 

important an economic life. Yet the heart Westphalia. 
of every German regards this country 
with deep and well-founded reverence. The abodes of 
the Chatti and the Cherusci form the original core of 
Germany ; as far back as historical record reaches, they 
have always been and always remained German ; no 
other race has ever gained a firm footing here, as the 
Romans and the French did on the Rhine, and the Slavs 



262 CENTRAL EUROPE 

on the Elbe. The Hermann monument in the Teuto- 
burger Wald, the grave of the German apostle at Fulda, 
and the imperial palace at Goslar all mark decisive turn- 
ing-points in German history. 

The part which Hesse played in it was determined 
by the divergence of the principal natural roads which 
open a communication across the hills between North 
and South Germany, and also help to connect Thuringia 
with the Rhine country. The two Hessian mountain 
masses, the Vogel Gebirge and the Hohe Rhon, both of 
which have been raised to a considerable elevation by 
volcanic flows of basalt, divide three lines of valley con- 
verging towards the north : that of the Wetterau, that of 
Central Hesse and that of West Thuringia. Through 
these valleys run three roads, marked out respectively by 
those reaches of the Upper Lahn which flow southward 
between Marburg and Giessen ; by the course of the Fulda ; 
and by the Upper Werra. These roads come from points 
far apart in the valley of the Main, and take a northward 
course that brings them together on the Fulda in the 
northern part of Hesse. The railway from Halle through 
North Thuringia goes directly towards the west as far 
as Cassel. To the west of this town, however, round 
Waldeck, lies an extensive mountainous district. It is 
turned on the south by an important line of railway, 
which at Giessen branches off from the line to Frankfort, 
and goes along the Lahn and Moselle to Metz, the farthest 
point of the Empire. The line that connects this frontier 
fortress with Berlin is crossed at Cassel by that which con- 
nects the principal towns of South Germany with the ports 
of the North Sea. Full advantage has only been taken 
of this position of Cassel as a junction of communications 
since its absorption by Prussia. The little country of 
Hesse itself was too poor in fertile land and mineral 
wealth to support a large town. Forty per cent, of its 
area is covered by wood ; the little mountain villages, 
in whose cottages the loom is heard rattling, are sur- 
rounded by wide stretches of meadow-land and pasture. 
The most favoured tract of the whole country is the valley 



SOUTH AND CENTRAL GERMANY 263 

of the Lahn, between the two cheerful university towns of 
Giessen and Marburg. 

The upper reaches of the Weser are not enlivened by 
great traffic. Even the development of Minden in the 
Porta Westphalica, has remained strikingly inferior, not 
only to that of its eastern neighbours, the capital towns of 
Brunswick and Hanover, but also of a place whose situa- 
tion is undoubtedly poorer, Bielefeld, standing away from 
the river on the road between Dortmund and Minden, 
and owing its rise to its being the principal seat of an 
old and famous linen trade. Like Bielefeld, Osnabriick 
lies just in front of a Teutoburgian forest pass, in the 
valley between these mountains and the parallel chain of 
the Wiehen Gebirge, lying opposite on the north-east ; it 
has grown equally great owing to its many different 
branches of manufacture, which are supported by the 
neighbouring coalfields. Osnabriick is traversed by the 
road which passes easily through the end of the Weser 
Mountains from Bremen south-westward to the Miinster- 
land. The capital of the " Red Earth " has gained new 
prospects since it was touched by the canal from Dort- 
mund to the Ems. 

Eastward of the Weser, in Schaumburg-Lippe and 
the province of Hanover, a belt of hill ranges rising 
directly from the lowland, the Biickeberg, the Deister, 
and the Osterwald, furnish abundant deposits of ex- 
cellent coal. This is the chief source of strength for the 
great trade of Hanover, and gives wings to the traffic 
along a star of railway lines converging at this convenient 
spot. Hanover long remained a little town. It only 
began to increase when it became the capital of a 
secondary State. It was not, however, one of the royal 
residences that owe their existence to foolish caprice, 
and are fostered unnaturally at the expense of places in 
better positions. The eye of Henry the Lion chose 
this situation for a town with insight indeed, but also 
with good luck, for many of its characteristics did not be- 
come valuable until the nineteenth century. The name 
(Honovere) expresses the advantage of the high banks 



264 CENTRAL EUROPE 

between which the Leine here flows. At a distance 
of fifteen miles from the border of the mountains it 
cuts for the last time through an island of solid rock 
which rises out of the loose diluvial ground, emits salt 
springs, and hides in its depths a bed of asphalt. The 
persistently meridional direction of the valley of the 
Leine was adapted to carry a main road running on the 
west side of the Hartz Mountains and connecting the 
northern lowland with Thuringia and South Germany. 
It was not, however, until the railway period that 
Hanover became the terminus of this road, and the 
crossing-place of the line from Cologne to Berlin with the 
line running north and south. The lively development 
of its traffic, and closely allied with that, the rise of its 
manufactures since the opening up of the neighbouring 
coalfields, have made Hanover — if Linden, which lies 
opposite on the left bank of the Leine, be reckoned with it 
as one centre of population — the fourth town in the king- 
dom of Prussia and the eighth in the Empire. It competes 
on about equal terms with Magdeburg, the point of de- 
parture for the eastern circuit of the Hartz Mountains, and 
has far outstripped Brunswick, which lying at the northern 
extremity of the chain at one time succeeded in drawing 
to itself the traffic from both sides of the mountains. 

This westward displacement of the inland centre of 
trade between the Elbe and Weser is in part — though 
many other causes contribute to it — a reflection of the 
change that has made Hamburg instead of Liibeck the 
chief trading seaport. Brunswick's flourishing period 
was the epoch of the Hanseatic League. It shared with 
Danzig, Liibeck, and Cologne the honour of being a 
capital of one of the four quarters of the League. The 
decay of German commercial supremacy in the Baltic 
and the rise of the Netherlands put an end to the 
prosperous days of Brunswick. The principal founda- 
tions of its present more modest prosperity are the high 
culture of its fertile territory, the development of the 
sugar trade, and the opening up of its mineral treasures, 
which consist of salt, alkalies, and lignite. 



SOUTH AND CENTRAL GERMANY 265 

The development of the chief towns in the northern 
foreland of the Hartz Mountains shows clearly how the 
main road and the centres of life were gradually shifted 
northward into the more open country. The oldest line 
of communication in the early Middle Ages kept nearer to 
the foot of the mountains, and has there left behind it 
towns in Hildesheim and Goslar, which in the antiquity of 
their memories, the character of their buildings, and the 
arrest of their development, contrast with the great centres 
of the foreland, in the same way as Halberstadt and 
Ouedlinburg, in the neighbouring district on the east, 
contrast with the metropolis of the Middle Elbe, by which 
they are overshadowed. 

The Elbe, which the Romans would like to have made 

the western boundary of free Germany, long remained, 

in later days, its eastern boundary. No 

part of its course was more important at The District 

the time when the Altmark and the ad- ° F THE 

... . TT ,.„ . ,- Middle Elbe 

joining part of Hanover were still in the (Thuringia 

hands of the Slavs than the solid high and Saxony). 

bank washed by the waters of the Middle 

Elbe at the point where it flows farthest to the west, 

between the embouchure of the Saale and that of the 

Ohre. Here, as early as the days of Charlemagne, 

arose Magdeburg, at first an extreme outpost of 

Germany. Later on it became a valuable support for 

colonisation to the east, a market for the trade of the 

Lower Rhenish manufacturing towns, and a powerful 

inland member of the Hanseatic League. The results 

of this long and strong development were annihilated 

by the destruction of the town in 163 1. Magdeburg 

revived as a fortress of Brandenburg. The bridge-head 

of the rising North German power now looked to the 

west. Renewed prosperity only came with the nineteenth 

century. With the intensified cultivation of its fertile 

plain, favoured by the discovery of the alkalis at Stassfurt, 

Magdeburg became a great manufacturing and trading 

place, which received colonial produce, coal, and petroleum 



266 CENTRAL EUROPE 

coming up the river, and sent down in exchange large 
loads of salt, manures, chemicals, and sugar. The develop- 
ment of the town outgrew the old belt of fortifications 
and created great suburbs beyond, which were only really 
incorporated with the original centre after the fall of 
the old defences. While the railway communications of 
Magdeburg, which has direct connection with five sea- 
ports, are not capable of further improvement, the water 
communications of the town will be largely extended when 
a canal opens a way to the Weser and the Rhine. Even 
now the great water traffic suggests that Magdeburg, with 
its magnificent river, holds the most advantageous place in 
the heart of North Germany in regard to the transport of 
goods. 

The basin of the Saale offers an interesting spectacle 
in the rivalry of two neighbouring cities, Halle and 
Leipzig, lying in the same hollow of the lowland, which 
enters between the heights of Thuringia and the foreland 
of the Erz Gebirge in such a way as to make both towns 
equally eligible starting-points for communication with 
South Germany and with the valley of the Rhine. Here, 
along the Saale and the Elster, roads branch off to 
Bohemia, Franconia, and Hesse, the lines of all of them 
being clearly marked by openings in the mountains which 
allow them passage. As is well known, the crossing-place 
of these roads became conspicuous in military history on 
account of the number of battles fought there — 1631, 
1634, 1757, 1813. These were not only great in them- 
selves, but also, owing to the locality, particularly decisive. 
The plain in the hollow of Leipzig is the most memorable 
field of battles on German soil. 

Halle, in spite of the great charms and advantages of 
its situation, the fame of its university and the growth of 
manufactures, has not become a great city of the first 
rank, but has been distinctly outstripped by Leipzig, 
which lies twenty miles to the south-east. This is princi- 
pally due to accidental historical circumstances. One 
of the chief of these was the dependence of Halle upon 
the archbishopric of Magdeburg, which was only tempo- 



SOUTH AND CENTRAL GERMANY 267 

rarily lessened by its inclusion in the Hanseatic League, 
and another was the care bestowed on Leipzig by the 
enlightened Electors of Saxony. To these it was 
mainly owing that the Elster basin was enabled to 
emancipate itself from the absorbing power of the Saale 
capital, and to develop a still larger centre of population 
of its own. It is true that, compared with Halle, which 
rises on the north-western border of the lowland bay and 
close to the Mansfeld Hills, Leipzig has the advantage of 
standing more in the open centre of this bay, and also a 
little more to the south, so that it comes exactly into the 
continuation of the Thuringian main road from Erfurt 
to Naumburg, while Halle lies rather to the north, and 
so off the naturally marked cross-ways. The site of 
Leipzig, however, was by no means particularly favour- 
able ; it was originally the marshy strip of valley in 
which the Elster changed its course from a northerly to 
a westerly direction before falling into the Saale, and, 
being joined by other tributaries, particularly the Pleisse, 
twined itself into a network of continually changing water- 
courses. The town rises out of this low valley on an 
alluvial plain to the east, and a wide ring of great suburbs 
have arisen in the course of the nineteenth century, and 
have been incorporated within the last few years. Leipzig 
— the Linden town of the Wends, and now the fourth city 
of Germany — is a much newer place than Halle. Not 
until the thirteenth century did it begin to develop into a 
centre of trade, supported by valuable privileges. The 
year 1268 may be reckoned as the year in which Leipzig 
Fair was born. The foundation of the university, too, 
one of the oldest in Germany, in 1407, contributed 
largely to the advancement of the town, and prepared its 
reputation as a mart of learned productions, printing, and 
bookselling. The storms of war, indeed, exposed the 
prosperity of Leipzig to severe and repeated trials ; but 
the promptitude and energy of spirit developed in the 
citizens by the protection of their trade privileges sur- 
mounted all such ordeals, and also prevented the efforts 
of Prussia to raise Halle at the expense of Leipzig from 



268 CENTRAL EUROPE 

being entirely successful. In the course of the nine- 
teenth century the old trade privileges of Leipzig have 
gradually become worthless, and the increase of general 
communication in the railway period has diminished the 
importance of its Fair. 

Thuringia, the country from the Hartz Mountains to 
the Thuringian Forest, comprises tracts of very dis- 
similar characters. The northern border is formed by 
mountains rich in minerals and occupied by old established 
mines — the Upper Hartz, amid whose thick woodlands 
for many centuries little mining towns were at work 
digging deep into the veins of silver; the Lower Hartz 
with great deposits of iron ore ; and the bare hill country 
about Mansfeld, which is the greatest seat of copper- 
mining in Germany, and has besides considerable wealth 
of silver. At the southern foot of the Hartz Mountains 
runs a fertile dip of land, the " Goldene Aue," through 
which passes an important line of communication be- 
tween Halle and Gottingen, a town whose importance is 
older than its famous university. Nordhausen, the 
principal place of the. Goldene Aue, sends out, along 
this busy road, not only the products of the fruitful 
country, but also the linen made by the poor weavers 
of Eichsfeld. Beyond, to the south of Nordhausen, 
begins the extensive shell-limestone plateau of Thuringia, 
a country poorly watered, with few trees and not very 
fertile. Its thinly peopled area is interrupted, however, by 
tracts of busier life, some due to little fruitful basins in 
which the limestone is covered by more recent deposits, 
and some to the main Thuringian highway, which 
accompanies the Werra on its passage across the thres- 
hold of the Thuringian Forest, passes down, by Eisenach 
and Gotha, to the basin of Erfurt, reaches the valley of 
the Ilm at Weimar, and following the direct continua- 
tion of it along the Saale, comes eventually to the edge 
of the lowland at Naumburg. The political sub-divi- 
sion of Thuringia has given birth to a number of very 
agreeable moderate-sized towns along this highway, two 
of which have secured an honourable place in the 



SOUTH AND CENTRAL GERMANY 269 

intellectual life of Germany — Weimar, as having been a 
fostering home of German literature, and Gotha, as being 
the seat of a renowned geographical institution. In the 
course of this rivalry no really large city has been de- 
veloped. Erfurt comes nearest to being this ; the ex- 
tremely fertile basin in which it lies and the mildness 
of the climate have made it a centre of prosperous 
market -gardening, while in this same basin the road 
from Gottingen, which continues the course of the Leine 
valley over the threshold of the Eichsfeld, joins the main 
Thuringian highroad. On the south of this important 
artery of traffic, the flat shell-limestone formation extends 
monotonously again at the foot of the Thuringian Forest, 
but is deeply furrowed by the valley of the Saale. The 
name of Jena recalls the rural charm of the Thuringian 
university belonging to the comfortable little town with 
its picturesque framework of hills ; but it recalls also the 
serious historic importance of the thoroughfares which 
come this way from the Main, round the southern 
end of the Thuringian Forest, and strike the valley of 
the Saale. Above Saalfeld the valley becomes difficult, 
narrow, tortuous, and deeply cut into the highland of the 
Franconian Forest. This highland may be regarded, both 
because of its extremely wooded character and because of 
the industrial activity of its inhabitants, as belonging prac- 
tically to the same district as the Thuringian Forest. 

Advancing northward from the slate quarries of Lehe- 
sten to the higher mountains, we first pass the circle of 
Sonneberg, where thirty places are engaged, on a system 
of minute division of labour, in preparing toys made of 
metal, stone, china, glass, wood, and papier-mache, for the 
markets of the world. Millions of dolls set out on their 
travels every year from these parts. A little to the north, 
glassworks are spread over both slopes of the range ; one 
place manufactures nothing but glass tubes for thermo- 
meters, and another great establishment nothing but glass 
eyes of the most deceptive perfection. The eastern slope 
of the mountains, and in particular the valleys of the 
Schwarza, Ilm, and Gera, are the principal headquarters 



270 CENTRAL EUROPE 

of the great porcelain trade of the Thuringian Forest. 
On a more northerly section of the same slope the people 
work in majolica and terra-cotta. The northern part of 
the western slope, on the other hand, contains iron and 
steel manufactures of old-established repute, the largest 
manufactories of arms in Germany, and an unsurpassed 
manufacture of hardware. Ruhla, at the northern ex- 
tremity of the mountains, works meerschaum and amber, 
and carves pipes. 

The Thuringian range is by no means a powerful 
barrier, indeed most of the minor States extend across 
the mountains. The cheerful capital of Saxe-Meiningen 
and most of its domains lie on the western slope in the 
valley of the Upper Werra, and Coburg, whose pic- 
turesque castle overlooks the tributary valley of the Main, 
belongs to Saxe-Gotha. 

By way of compensation, the north-eastern corner 
of Bavaria reaches across the steep slope of the Fran- 
conian Forest into the district of the Upper Saale, 
which has Hof for its centre of traffic. This is the 
beginning of the Vogtland, the highland that falls away in 
soft gradations towards the north on both sides of the 
Elster. It is a tract of land rich in fine meadows, rather 
too high for intense cultivation, and favourable to the 
growth only of potatoes and rye. Mineral treasure of 
its own it has none. The coalfield, however, in the 
basin of Zwickau also furnishes the great textile industry 
of Vogtland, and has enabled it to expand a small home 
industry into a large one concentrated in considerable 
towns. Spinning and weaving, both of wool and cotton, 
as well as lacemaking and embroidery, are carried on in 
the towns of the Vogtland, and also in Gera and Greiz, the 
capitals of the two duchies of Reuss, but more particularly 
at Plauen, which gains an increase of activity from its 
position at the cross-roads from Leipzig to Eger, and from 
Dresden to Bamberg. 

The mainstay of Saxon mining and manufacture is 
the coal-bed between Zwickau and Chemnitz, on the 
northern slope of the Erz Gebirge. Mining operations, 



SOUTH AND CENTRAL GERMANY 271 

which have to penetrate a thick covering of recent rock 
to reach the coal, are here busied with two coalfields : one 
at Zwickau, which is the heart of a crowd of manufactur- 
ing villages, and a second, farther to the east, at Oelsnitz 
and Lugau. A little north-east of these floats the smoky 
flag of Chemnitz, in the network of whose sooty streets 
dwells that closely packed army of workers which keeps 
busy the workshops where machines are built, cotton 
spun, coloured goods woven, and hosiery made. The 
textile trade, which preponderates in this principal town 
of the district, has other favoured homes to the north 
of Zwickau at Glauchau, Meerane, Crimmitschau, and 
Werdau. An area of 555 square miles is inhabited by 
860,000 persons, and even in a much wider circle the 
vivifying influence is perceptible of that source of vital 
power which human industry here draws from the bosom 
of the earth. Urban settlements, however, rise from the 
longitude of Chemnitz to the highest summits of the Erz 
Gebirge ; Annaberg flourishes at a height of about 2000 
feet ; and the highest townlet in the German Empire, 
Ober-Wiesenthal, has an altitude of about 3000 feet. The 
explanation of this density of population in a rough un- 
fruitful highland lies not in the far-reaching influence of 
the coalfield on the border of the mountains, but in the 
after-results of the tin-mining and silver- mining which 
flourished in the sixteenth century, and attracted a great 
body of colonists to the Erz Gebirge who thinned its 
woods and penetrated to the very top of its ridge. When 
the mines were exhausted, the population that had 
gathered and multiplied applied itself to other branches of 
industry. Bobbin lace, passementerie, and many depart- 
ments of woodwork provide subsistence for the inhabitants 
of spots so high up that agriculture ceases to be possible. 
Few places in this whole belt of mountains, which was 
once famous for its mineral wealth, now carry on mining, 
the chief of them being Freiberg, the seat of a renowned 
mining academy. Many ships are still loaded at Pirna 
with the excellent building stone of the neighbouring 
sandstone quarries, and Meissen, once the important 



272 CENTRAL EUROPE 

focus of German colonisation, is still famous for its 
porcelain manufacture. But both towns have had to 
yield their leading positions to Dresden, which has arisen 
between them, and was selected by the rulers of the 
country for its capital. Dresden is primarily a royal 
residence, and as such singularly well chosen. The ad- 
jacent mountains not only form an agreeable conclusion 
to the delightful valley prospect, with its framework 
of pleasant hills, gardens, and country-houses, but also 
supply a splendid building stone for those monumental 
edifices which are erected not only by the ostentation 
of vain despots, but also by the enlightened work of an 
age that requires ample facilities for communication. The 
beauty of the situation, the architecture with its mingling 
of coquetry and dignity, the many art collections made 
by the fine taste of its rulers, combine to make Dresden 
attractive not only to travellers, but also to wealthy people 
who desire a quiet and agreeable life and who settle here 
permanently. But beside the Dresden of the court, and 
the Dresden of the stranger who seeks his ease, a 
Dresden of industry is growing up, with a ring of 
suburbs and outlying districts. It is true, however, that 
many branches of Dresden's industry owe their origin to 
the brilliance, the good taste, and the pleasantness that 
belong to a cheerful royal residence and a favourite 
meeting-place of wealthy foreigners. 

When the express train has flown past the last 

country-houses of Dresden and dives into the sandy 

wastes and fir plantations of the Dresden 

er satia pj ea f.u it seems to the traveller as if a 
and Silesia. . ' . 

curtain fell and shut off the rich life 

of West Germany. We come into the comparative 

poverty of the east, into districts more recently civilised 

and less completely Germanised. The traveller from the 

west is reminded that this is so by the chance words of 

Wendish that fall upon his ear in the station of Bautzen. 

The mere persistence of this island of Wendish speech is 

enough to show how quietly this country on both sides 

of the Spree has for centuries lived. 



SOUTH AND CENTRAL GERMANY 273 

Gorlitz, the capital of Lusatia, at the crossing of im- 
portant lines of communication, fringes the banks of 
the Neisse valley, cut deeply into the granite block at 
the base of the basalt column of the Landeskrone. In 
spite of the administrative division the feeling of the 
people still regards Lusatia as an independent entity. 
Silesia proper does not begin until the other side of the 
Queis. 

This province of the Prussian State pushes itself like 
a peninsula between Bohemia and Poland. The presence 
of foreign tariff frontiers on each side hinders the full 
development of many departments of its progressive 
economic life, and gives additional value to that improve- 
ment of the Oder which has in the last few decades made 
it a waterway of considerable value, and rendered com- 
munication possible with the centre of the State and with 
the distant seas. The mountains, rich in wood, but with 
no great store of minerals, are the seat of industries that 
are assisted by the motive power of the mountain streams, 
an assistance the value of which will continue to be 
extremely variable so long as reservoirs do not exist and 
assure a more constant water supply. Glass furnaces, 
sawmills, and wood-pulp factories are eating up the 
woods. Hand-weaving maintains a precarious existence 
in the poor mountains. But the transference of the whole 
textile industry to machines and to large manufactories is 
irresistibly completing itself. Its development follows the 
attraction of the coalfield of Waldenburg, which has caused 
densely inhabited villages and bustling work places to press 
in between steep wooded mountains. Small industrial 
towns at the more important passes and in the little hollows 
among the mountains form centres for the general life of 
the inhabitants. The main lines of communication, how- 
ever, have from ancient times kept to the outer border of 
the chain, reaching the fertile middle Silesian plain, at 
Liegnitz, and the Oder at Breslau. The old capital of 
Silesia rises here in the centre of a plain which is very 
highly cultivated, and is the great eastern centre of beet- 
growing and sugar-making. The town stands at the 



274 



CENTRAL EUROPE 



junction of roads through the mountains, the line of 
which is fixed by the passes, and of roads in the plain, 
which are guided to this point by the course of the 
Oder and some of its tributaries. In the fourteenth 
and fifteenth centuries Breslau lay on the extreme border 
of European civilisation. In its markets convoys of 
goods from the Netherlands and South Germany met 
those from Hungary, Poland, and Prussia. The mer- 
chants of the city carried the products of the west and of 
their own industry far out into Eastern Europe, and on 
the other hand were in direct communication with Venice 
and Bruges. In the sixteenth century the independent 
development of Poland lessened the value of the old trade 
privileges which had combined with its position to give 
Breslau so leading a place in European commerce. The 
later advance of the town, in the nineteenth century, 
rested upon other grounds. Breslau was now the centre 
of commercial life in a large and productive province, the 
railway lines of which converged upon it. The fact that 
the river was not navigable for large vessels above Breslau 
made this the haven of the province, and favoured the 
development of busy manufacture as well as the agglome- 
ration of population. Latterly, however, as the means of 
communication increased, the province began to depend 
less and less upon the centre. The canalisation of the 
river upwards to Kosel has made that the shipping-place 
of Upper Silesia, while the telegraph and telephone bring 
the industry of the province into direct relation with the 
centre of the Empire. 

An extensive wooded territory close to the frontier 
of the Empire, which was formerly divided amon^ a few 
large landowners, and had in the eighteenth century but a 
rare and poor population living in wretched villages and 
small towns, has become — since the opening of a coal- 
bed which surpasses in richness even that of Westphalia 
— the theatre of immense manufactures, which, having at 
command the unusual combination of coal, iron, zinc, and 
lead, have sprung up quickly and in great variety. More 
zinc is obtained here than anywhere else in Europe. The 



SOUTH AND CENTRAL GERMANY 275 

local supply of iron, which is not of great value, does not 
suffice for the iron trade, but the low price of coal makes 
it possible to bring better ore from far away, in spite of 
the distance from great markets and great waterways, 
which is disadvantageous alike to importation and to ex- 
portation. The gathering together of forges round the 
coal-pits has caused a great increase of population, and 
has created industrial towns like Konigshiitte in the 
course of some twenty or thirty years. In a triangle 
between Tarnowitz, Myslowitz, and Gleiwitz there are 
659,000 persons dwelling in a territory of 232 square 
miles. The streams of the country-side have run away 
into the pits of the mines, where the water gets mixed 
with acids and becomes unfit for use, so that the vast 
population is supplied with water by a great system of 
artificial channels from the springs in the neighbouring 
chain of heights to the north. Close by this busy ant- 
hill of workers lie wide expanses of woodland — the coal- 
beds of future mines — divided into the preserves of great 
landlords. 

f 

Note on Authorities. — Germany is a great field of experiment for the 

methods of comparative geography. 

While the brilliant work, Bavaria (five parts in nine volumes), 1862- 
68 ; Das Konigreich Wiirtemberg (3 vols.), 1882-86 ; Das Grossherzog- 
thum Baden, 1885 ; and Das Reichland Elsass-Lothringen (in progress 
•since 1 894) have been produced by the co-operation of many learned men 
working upon a large scheme, individual geographers have written single- 
handed books ; W. Gotz upon Bavaria (1895-1901), Fritz Regel upon 
Thuringia (3 vols., 1892-96), and J. Partsch upon Silesia, 1896- 1903. 

A variety of details may be found in the Forschungen zur Deutschen 
Landes-und- Volkskunde, set on foot by R. Lehmann in 1886 and published 
since 1888 by A. Kirchhoff. Up to the present time 14 volumes have 
appeared. 



19 



CHAPTER XVII 

NORTH GERMANY 

As we leave the mountains and hills, the character of the 
landscape becomes more monotonous. The richly 
ornamented cathedrals of the Danube and the Rhine 
give place to the sober brick facades of public buildings 
in North German towns of the open lowland, and the 
paving of the lesser country towns, even at the present 
day, exhibits the " cats' heads " (cobble stones) belonging 
to the rounded diluvial rubble, which were at one time 
the only material available for making solid causeways, 
even in large towns. To the agriculturist, too, this wide 
loose plain seldom offers fertile loams, with their 
abundant supply of nourishment, or rich marshlands ; 
sterile sand and heaths that defy cultivation generally 
prevail. 

The land for which the German colonists, always 
pushing forward, struggled so manfully, first with the older 
inhabitants, and then with its own unkindly nature, was 
poor, and in its original condition of wilderness even 
repellent ; but it has been made, not indeed into a 
paradise, but into a dwelling-place that responds not un- 
gratefully to the strenuous labour of an endeavouring 
people. There are considerable expanses only fit to 
grow trees, with which, indeed, large connected tracts on 
the east of the Elbe and others in the Altmark are 
covered, but as we approach the North Sea the woods 
grow thinner and thinner, and their place is taken by 
barren heaths and marshes. The existence of these 
almost uninhabited districts must of itself reduce the 
average density of population. This is much lower 
than that already given for the districts lying along the 



NORTH GERMANY 277 

mountains of Mid-Germany, notwithstanding the fact that 
the two greatest centres of population in the Empire throw 
their weight into this scale. In Berlin-Charlottenburg, 
with the thickly peopled environs, and in Hamburg-Altona 
are to be found above three millions of the total nineteen 
and a half millions of inhabitants who share the immense 
area (102,100 square miles) of the North German Lowland. 
Its totality is naturally divided into three parts : — the 
shore-land of the two German seas, the intermediate dis- 
trict of the great valleys, and the southern ridge of land 
at a distance from the seas. 

The southern border of the lowland, from the 
Malapane to the Droemling and the Aller, is pretty 

sharply marked by a series of valleys. „ 

*\ . ,, \ . ± xi • 1 The Great Valleys. 

Sometimes the entrance into a thinly 

peopled district on its northern side is rendered par- 
ticularly striking by a wide strip of barren woodland ; 
this is the case in Upper Silesia, in the Heath of Lusatia, 
in Lower Silesia, and along the south of the Altmark. 
On the other hand, the roads from Breslau and Witten- 
berg, which are important crossing-places of rivers, 
lead directly through ploughed lands and numerous 
villages up to the dry heights of the southern ridge 
of land, where a rich variety of cultivation is exhibited 
— orchards, fields, and considerable forests. The final 
section of this ridge is the Liineburg Heath, an un- 
dulating plain scantily populated and better adapted for 
sheep-grazing than for agriculture. 

The southern of the great valleys (p. 103) is not favour- 
able to longitudinal communications ; swamps and ponds 
fill some reaches of its ground. Towns indicate the cross- 
ingrplaces of rivers and swamps. Such are Glogau on the 
Oder, Cottbus on the Spree, Brandenburg on the Havel, 
once the strongest river-castle of the Wends. Standing 
opposite to Magdeburg, it so effectually dominated the en- 
trance to the Marches of Brandenburg and the communi- 
cations of their western parts, that the Margraves chose it 
for their residence. Since it ceased to be a capital and a 
bishopric, it has become a provincial town, whose exterior 



278 CENTRAL EUROPE 

still preserves old memories, but of which the present life 
is dominated by manufactures, especially by the weaving 
of wool. 

The second great line of valleys, that from Warsaw 
to Berlin, possesses for the greater part of its extent no 
towns. To the prosperity of Warsaw, which lies at its 
eastern end, it contributes nothing. The crossing-places of 
the roads in Poland and Posen are wretched hamlets. The 
more amazing is the appearance of Berlin in this valley 
line, which continues on the other side of Spandau with 
broken and thinly peopled country as far as Havelberg. 

The most northerly valley, which runs along the 
southern foot of the high Baltic ridge, possesses a trading 
town of old-established reputation in Thorn. It was at 
this point that the mediasval lines of traffic which came 
up the Vistula and along the shore divided, to carry the 
goods brought from the sea to Frankfort, Breslau, and 
Cracow. The Vistula was the main artery of life to this 
town, and so it is still. But for want of care the upper 
Russian reaches have lost some of their importance, while 
towards the west the ancient channel, where formerly the 
original Vistula, now the Brahe, Netze, and Warta run, 
has once more been revived and made of use by means 
of the canals constructed by the Prussian Government. 
The greater part of the vast quantity of timber floated 
down from Russia takes its way westward into the district 
of the Oder. On this canal a serious rival of Thorn grew 
up in Bromberg. 

When, however, we leave these old valley lines of the 
diluvial period, fallen in our present system of water-ways 
to mere tributaries, and we turn to the newer water- 
courses which run northward and connect the old valleys, 
we find no great town in the interior of Eastern Germany, 
but only the secondary towns of Frankfort and Posen, 
both of which lie upon the line of the old roadway. The 
ancient capital of Great Poland occupies a central posi- 
tion between the Bartsch and the Netze. Within this outer 
framing an inner square is formed in the immediate 
environs of Posen by the waters of the Warta, the Obra, 



NORTH GERMANY 279 

the Warta again, and the Welna, while various other 
streams run close to the city. By means of this natural 
water-fortress the ancient kingdom of Poland long made 
head against advancing Germany, until indeed the capital 
was again removed in 1296 to the Vistula in order to be 
nearer to the advancing eastern frontier. But even after 
this, Posen, which had been turned by German immi- 
grants into a real town, remained an important and 
populous place at the crossing of busy trading roads. It 
fell into decay only with the fall of the kingdom of Poland. 
Now, cared for by an enlightened and honest Govern- 
ment, it is quickly recovering as the capital of a province 
whose excellent soil distinguishes it most advantageously 
from the Mark. As an important junction of the com- 
munications of all the eastern parts of the Empire, Posen 
is strongly fortified. In regard to ideal matters, too, it is 
an important outpost of German civilisation. 

Communication between Posen and the Elbe district 
was originally carried on by way of the lowland bay of 
Leipzig and the main Thuringian highway. Since the 
middle of the thirteenth century, however, the more 
northerly road between Magdeburg and Posen, by the 
passage of the Oder at Frankfort, has gradually come to 
be preferred. For some hundreds of years Frankfort-on- 
the-Oder succeeded in making itself the terminus of the 
trade that came up that river from the sea, and also in 
securing, for a considerable extent of the river, the monopoly 
of passage for traffic to Poland. This position of pre- 
dominance was only undermined in the seventeenth 
century by the opening of a canal between the Oder and 
the Spree, and by the complete emancipation of naviga- 
tion on the Oder. Up to the nineteenth century, how- 
ever, the fairs of Frankfort remained favourite meeting- 
places of East German and Polish traders. Manu- 
facture in- these days compensates it for many of its 
commercial losses ; the smelting of iron and the 
manufacture of machinery are largely carried on, the 
raw materials being brought up by the river and by 
six lines of railway. 



280 CENTRAL EUROPE 

Westward of Frankfort the diluvial plateau, whose 
extensive area on the east of the Oder offers a large con- 
nected tract of fertile loam for agricultural use, grows 
narrower, and is at the same time more broken up by 
lines of valley. Loose masses of sand growing nothing 
but Scotch firs, and valleys of marshy character become 
more and more prevalent as we approach the Elbe, in the 
immediate neighbourhood of which we find only a few 
islands of fertile diluvial country rising from the wide 
meadow hollows through which the Havel takes its wind- 
ing course, often widening out into lakes. But before 
the traveller comes to the cheerful shore of the Havel and 
the changing pictures mirrored in its waters, the train, 
which for an hour before has carried him chiefly through 
dark woods, brings him suddenly to the capital of the 
German Empire, which seems to have been set down by 
some spell in this poor and sandy country. 

The fortunes of Germany have been powerfully 
affected by the circumstance that none of its districts 
had by nature and position a supremacy which 
secured the unity of the whole and its rule from 
one particular point. Not by an edict of nature, but by 
fierce struggles that have determined the course of history 
has the new empire gained what the old lacked — a 
capital. 

The position of Berlin is, nevertheless, not devoid 
of geographical interest. If, however, we desire an im- 
pression corresponding to all the facts, we must content 
ourselves, in judging the choice of the spot, with a very 
narrow horizon, and then afterwards consider how en- 
lightenment and energy have been able so to utilise and 
develop the situation that it satisfies the demands of 
one of the world's great cities. The Mark formed a 
border-land of the old empire, gradually spreading to- 
wards the east. Its seat of government changed with its 
eastern frontier. From Salzwedel it was moved eastward 
in 1 141 across the Elbe to Brandenburg, the name of 
which is rightly borne by the country that forms the 



NORTH GERMANY 281 

core of the monarchy. It still grew quickly eastward, and 
extended beyond the Oder. But internal troubles caused 
the capital to be once more withdrawn to the left bank 
of the Elbe at Tangermiinde. Yet the double town of 
Berlin-Kolln was already in existence, and enjoying a 
modest prosperity as a trading-place on the right bank 
of the Spree, and on an island that facilitated the cross- 
ing. Possessing chartered privileges, the town became, 
thanks to its central position, the head of a little league 
of towns in the Mark. This period was cut short in a 
very surprising and unpleasant manner by the second 
of the Hohenzollern Electors, who in 1442 repealed the 
ancient rights of Berlin and Kolln, and in 145 1 built 
himself a castle between the two towns. From 149 1 
onward this castle was the permanent abode of the 
rulers of the Mark, with whose fortunes Berlin was 
thenceforward closely related. 

Lying midway between the two parallel rivers of the 
Elbe and the Oder, in the centre of the old valley — 
only partly filled by the Spree — that connects them by 
means of a diagonal to the north-west, Berlin was very 
well adapted to be the meeting-place of all the interior 
lines of traffic of the Mark. But its situation gained 
a more widely reaching importance when, in 1668, the 
Great Elector opened the canal between the Oder and 
the Spree, which made Berlin the centre of navigation 
between Breslau and Hamburg, and created the main 
diagonal of water traffic in North Germany. 

At Berlin cross the world's great roads from Paris 
to St. Petersburg, from London to Odessa, and from 
Stockholm to Rome, while the greatest continental 
railway of the world, which crosses the whole mainland 
from Lisbon by way of Moscow to Vladivostock, has one 
of its principal stations at Berlin. 

Berlin is the greatest manufacturing town of Central 
Europe. The beginnings of its industrial activity go 
back to the time when the Great Elector settled the 
French refugees here, whose western civilisation was 
advantageously grafted upon the strong race of the 



282 CENTRAL EUROPE 

Mark. The greatest strides in its progress, however, belong 
to quite modern times. 

Of the wage-earners of Berlin, 53 per cent, are 
engaged in manufacture and 24 per cent, in trade, or 
upon the various means of communication. Of the total 
of those who are employed industrially, 31 per cent, are 
engaged in the clothing trades, in which Berlin has 
gradually gained a position for itself apart from the lead 
of Paris ; 1 2 per cent, are engaged in a machinery 
manufacture which not only supplies every department 
of practical life, but has also a world-wide reputation for 
scientific instruments of precision. 

Very considerable assistance is given to Berlin in its 
economic struggles by the activity of scientific life, which 
by its inventions opens new ways in many departments of 
industry, and secures constant employment to others. 
The Technical College at Charlottenburg is a bright 
example of the economic productivity of intellectual 
studies. Nor will the observer who is accustomed to 
look deeply into the development of nations and into the 
ways in which they forge their own fortunes forget the 
University of Berlin. There is no branch of knowledge 
in which this university has not, at one time or another, 
taken a leading place, and long and profitably retained 
it. From 200,000 in the year 1808, Berlin has increased 
to a population of 1,888,000. Nor is this all. Like 
planetary bodies, capitals cast off fragments of population 
which, sometimes with specialised functions, lead a life 
of their own. The towns of Charlottenburg and Schone- 
berg, though they continue to be separate municipalities, 
are now in direct contact with Berlin, and so are many 
villages of an urban character, one of which, Rixdorf^ 
has 90,000 inhabitants. The whole ring of suburbs that 
surrounds Berlin and derives light from it as a centre, 
adds more than 700,000 persons to the number of the 
capital's population. This includes the two old towns of 
the Havel, Spandau and Potsdam, which have been com- 
pletely enclosed within the precincts of Berlin. The junc- 
tion of the Havel and the Spree afforded to Spandau a 



NORTH GERMANY 283 

position which, in the Middle Ages, was secure but not 
very healthy. It is now the central military storehouse of 
the Empire, and has great arsenals and workshops for the 
manufacture of arms and ammunition ; the imperial 
military treasure, too, is kept here. Potsdam, on the 
other hand, which lies amid the parks belonging to 
the castles of Sanssouci, Babelsberg, and Glienicke, is a 
quiet and pleasant royal residence. The great pools of 
the Havel lakes, the clumps of trees in the pleasure 
garden, with the castles peeping out between, breathe rest 
and peace and invite to the easy enjoyment of an honour- 
able leisure. 

The varying struggles of nations for existence, the rise 
and fall of their importance, leave traces in the alterations 
of their national and political boundaries. The German 
The most important peculiarity in the outline Countries 
of the German Empire, and one which must of the 
influence its future destinies, is the imperfect Baltic. 
correspondence between the extent of its inland territory 
and its coast-line. To the west, the delta of the Rhine 
has become politically separated, so that the mouth 
of the largest German river lies in foreign hands. On the 
other hand, the results of German mediaeval colonisation 
have so far maintained themselves, that the lower reaches 
of the Vistula and the Niemen, the rivers of Poland and 
Lithuania, are ruled by their German inhabitants. The 
development of East Prussia and Dantzig is impeded by 
the manner in which they are, as it were, embraced by 
Russia ; they are cut off from the " hinterland " by the 
tariffs of a power whose aim is to isolate herself as far as 
possible, and other obstacles besides the unfavourable 
climate are thus put in the way of progress in this 
portion of Germany. Finally, the German duty on 
wheat helped to drive the most important product of 
Poland and Lithuania, which at one time had poured 
abundantly into Prussian ports, to the ports of Russia, 
especially to the rapidly rising Libau. The rivers, in these 
days, when free from ice, carry down a vast quantity of 



284 CENTRAL EUROPE 

timber, but scarcely anything else. The towns which suffer 
most severely from being thus shut off from the "hinter- 
land " are naturally those of the Niemen : Tilsit, which, 
while the old system of roadways lasted, was an important 
crossing-place at the narrowest point of a valley that is 
in most parts very broad, and also liable to be widely 
flooded ; and Memel, which stands at the sole outlet of 
the Curische Haff. 

Konigsberg, situated between the two Haffs of East 
Prussia and able to communicate with both, enjoys a 
larger sphere of influence, while it dominates the low 
heights of the coast as far as the amber shore of Samland, 
and also the fertile tract of land at the foot of the Baltic 
ridge. Its access to the sea was imperfect until the 
Konigsberg Sea Canal was carried across the Haff be- 
tween moles. Now ships of more than twenty feet 
draught come into Konigsberg, which . lies twenty-five 
miles from the sea. The opening of a free port here 
will contribute to increased activity of trade. The im- 
portation of coal by sea and of wood by river helps to 
keep up some manufactures which mainly serve the needs 
of the province, and so do not profit much by the fact 
that the town is on the main line to the capital of Russia. 
The efforts made to improve the place have succeeded 
in making it the largest of the German towns on the 
Baltic, and its university is the centre of intellectual life 
in the North-East German provinces. 

The farther south we go from Konigsberg, the less 
populous the country appears until we reach the extensive 
wooded district of Masuria, the large lakes of which are 
connected by watercourses with one another and with the 
rivers of Poland and Prussia. The population sinks here 
to less than ioo to the square mile. Severely schooled 
by stern nature, one of the sturdiest races of Germany 
has grown up in East Prussia, a race which left a never- 
to-be-forgotten example of self-sacrifice and patriotism at 
the time of the war against the Napoleonic tyranny. 

The valley of the Vistula carries a tract of fertile, well- 
cultivated land across Prussia. The district lying between 



NORTH GERMANY 285 

the two branches of its estuary, one of which falls into 
the southern corner of the Frische Haff and the other 
into the Gulf of Dantzig, is in particular one of the 
richest pieces of wheat-growing land in North Germany. 
Here there is a dense population, ready to protect the 
dikes if the swollen river should threaten their hoped- 
for harvests. Close by arose the most prosperous towns 
of West Prussia. The railway from Berlin to Konigsberg 
crosses the branches of the dividing Vistula at Dirschau 
and at Marienburg, which stands on the high right bank 
of the Nogat and was the earliest seat of government of 
the Teutonic Order ; it then, before approaching the 
Frische Haff, runs at the edge of the rich marshes that 
have filled up its south end, and passes the great ship- 
building yards and machinery workshops of Elbing, a 
place which, by means of the river of its own name and 
the Oberland canal, carries on a busy trade with the lakes 
in the southern hills, and has always made efforts to 
obtain a share in the sea trade too by means of the 
Frische Haff. In this respect, however, its neighbour on 
the west, Dantzig, is incomparably better situated. 

If we enter the main street of Dantzig, buildings of 
the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries at once speak of the 
prosperous time when it was a free German town, the 
port of the Polish kingdom, and the entrance for all trade 
by sea with the whole district of the Vistula. Its inclusion 
in Poland unavoidably involved the place in the downfall 
of that kingdom. Impoverished and enfeebled, it fell at 
last into the hands of Prussia, and pressed upon not only 
by the nearness of the Russian frontier, but also by the 
competition of Konigsberg and Stettin, has but very slowly 
gained fresh strength. Natural causes also interfered. 
The Vistula, which formerly conducted its main stream 
past the north side of the town and fell into the sea to the 
north-west at Neufahrwasser, broke through the dunes on 
the east at Neufahr in 1840, and made itself a new mouth 
at some distance from Dantzig. Engineering skill suc- 
ceeded in drawing an advantage even from this catastrophe. 
The old arm of the Vistula was now closed near Neufahr 



286 



CENTRAL EUROPE 



by a sluice-gate, retaining high floods and floating ice ; 
its eastern reach was turned into a great harbour, and 
its western into a sea-canal by which ships could come 
up from the outer port of Neufahrwasser, while the little 
river Mottlau which runs through the town was deepened 
by dredging to fourteen feet, and boats were enabled 




Fig. 37.— The Delta of the Vistula. 



to come actually into the town itself. Recently this 
arrangement was even better secured by removing the 
high waters of the Vistula yet more to the east through 
a canal piercing the dunes by the shortest way. 

But all these efforts have not succeeded in raising the 
sea trade much above that of Konigsberg. The inland 
waterways have been completed by the Vistula and Haff 



NORTH GERMANY 287 

Canal, which connects Elbing and Konigsberg. If com- 
merce, however, has made no great strides in the last few 
decades, manufactures have greatly developed. Shipbuild- 
ing, machine-making, and a whole series of trades that deal 
with the preparation of agricultural products are especially 
flourishing. The sea-shore, which still lies at a distance 
of three miles from Dantzig, is bordered by friendly little 
suburbs, sea-bathing places, which are the last in that line 
of visitors' resorts that animate the Prussian coast and the 
outlying tongues of land in summer-time. 

Swinemunde is the busy outer port of Stettin, which 
lies on the inner shore of the Haff, planted high on the 
left bank of the mouth of the Oder, and continually 
extending. Both sides of the river are covered by a number 
of suburbs with busy factories, which if they were reckoned 
in would make Stettin the largest centre of population 
(200,000 inhabitants) on the German shores of the Baltic. 
Stettin, the most southerly of all the Baltic ports, is the 
most important trading port of the kingdom of Prussia, 
the gate of that river basin which falls most com- 
pletely within the territory of the monarchy, forming 
the solid kernel around which the other provinces were 
drawn together, at first loosely and then in firm union. 
The possession of this place was of fundamental import- 
ance to the growth of the State. Stettin has prepared 
itself by means of new docks for the further increase of 
its maritime relations. Besides acting as a port for the 
commerce of Berlin and of four productive provinces, 
Stettin has a lucrative trade of its own. In Conti- 
nental shipbuilding the " Vulcan " yards take a high place. 
Great cement-works, too, send their products to a distance. 
The mills, breweries, distilleries, and sugar-factories of 
Stettin are the principal destination of the agricultural 
products of Pomerania. 

While the estuaries of the great rivers encourage a 
concentration of inhabitants in the three great towns 
of the three old Baltic provinces of Prussia, the more 
divided western shore of the German Baltic, with the 
" bodden " and creeks of Western Pomerania, Meek- 



288 CENTRAL EUROPE 

lenburg, and Schleswig-Holstein, shows a greater number 
of moderate-sized towns, most of them old and formerly 
strong members of the Hanseatic League, competing one 
against another. The towns of Hither Pomerania, a fertile 
district in which agriculture is profitably carried on, fall 
rather behind in this rivalry. Rostock, the most flourish- 
ing sea-town of Mecklenburg, reaps an advantage from 
the circumstance that the southerly projection of Falster 
lies just opposite. By way of Rostock a crossing of 
twenty-eight miles of open sea between Warnemunde and 
Gjedser suffices for the quickest possible communication 
between Berlin and Copenhagen. Rostock's own active 
shipping trade and shipyards give it one of the first 
places among the German ports on the Baltic. It is 
the largest town in Mecklenburg. Schwerin was pre- 
ferred to it in earlier times because of its position 
between the lakes of the interior, which would have 
been difficult of attack, and the charms of its scenery 
fitted it to be a pleasant little royal residence, but a 
centre of traffic it could never have become. 

If we consider the outline of the Baltic Sea on the 
whole, we must perceive that the south-western angle has 
a peculiar importance. It is the end of the principal axis 
of the long basin ; it comes nearest to the basin of the 
Elbe and to West Germany, which were early civi- 
lised. Here Liibeck on the Trave, flourishing as long 
ago as the middle of the twelfth century, was the chief 
city of the German Hanseatic League, and mistress for a 
lengthened period of the Baltic Sea and of the trade that 
dealt with the produce of its fisheries and with the raw 
material of adjacent countries. Liibeck continued to hold 
a position of privilege in the world as long as an impulse 
towards the east ruled West Germany's spirit of enterprise, 
and as long as the thinly peopled countries of the Baltic 
opposed but a passive resistance to German exploitation 
of their treasures. When trans-oceanic discoveries made 
the Atlantic and the North Sea the theatre of navigation 
on a larger scale and to remoter ports, the Scandinavian 
nations rose to greater economic independence and political 



NORTH GERMANY 289 

strength. Then the star of Lubeck set. Its prudent citi- 
zens, however, managed to maintain an honoured position 
and to attract a considerable trade. They deepened the 
little river Trave, so that ships of five metres' draught can 
come up to the town instead of stopping at Travemunde. 
By building the Elbe and Trave canal they have lately 
improved the connection by water with the Elbe, originally 
opened in 1398 by means of the Stecknitz Canal, the 
oldest in Germany, and in spite of the difficulties that 
beset a little republic standing among larger neighbours 
who pursued their own interests, Lubeck has also suc- 
ceeded in getting advantageously linked on to the North 
German railway system. The town has thus, not indeed 
advanced so rapidly as several of the Baltic ports in the 
Prussian domain, but preserved a respectable importance. 
Its Baltic trade reaps a natural advantage from its having 
all Western Germany as its hinterland. In this respect 
Lubeck remains superior to the ports of Schleswig-Holstein, 
which have only a narrow strip of peninsula behind them. 

Kiel alone lies sufficiently to the south to compete 
with Lubeck, but the importance of this beautiful 
Holstein port now rests upon other grounds. As 
the great naval station of the German Empire, Kiel, which 
was once a quiet little university town, has advanced 
with rapid strides. The improvements which have been 
made in the military interest are also of service to its 
commerce. This is particularly the case in regard to the 
construction of the North Sea Canal, which transfers to 
Kiel some part of the old and long misused privileges 
enjoyed by Copenhagen as the gate of the Baltic. 

A journey along the German shores of the Baltic 
leaves behind some impression of the historical and 
economic importance of this sea. In the nature of 
things, the eastern ports of the Baltic are particularly 
eager for ocean trade. Of the vessels that land on the 
shores of East Prussia, 48 per cent., and 71 per cent, 
of the whole tonnage, come from waters outside the 
Baltic. In Lubeck these significant figures fall to five 
and eleven respectively. In the old Hanse town, which 



290 CENTRAL EUROPE 

was once mistress of the Baltic trade, the impression of 
the Baltic as an enclosed sphere of commerce still re- 
mains alive. And, indeed, when we consider the whole 
circle of the Baltic, we cannot deny that its enclosed 
character does limit not only the nature of its waters 
— their saltness, their slowness to freeze, and their re- 
sponse to the pulsations of ebb and flow — but also the 
vitality of its trade, and that in regard to time, space, 
and intensity. Although the Baltic coast of Germany is 
fully double as long as its North Sea coast, the latter 
has three times as many vessels, five times as many 
sailors, and six times as large a tonnage. 

Nor can the sea-fishing of the Baltic compare with 
that of the North Sea, at least since the time when the 
herring-fishery, which we are assured on good authority 
used to be pursued off the coast of Scania, changed its 
place for the benefit of the Scotch and Norwegian shores. 
Fish, however, still continues to be an important factor 
in the earnings of the people of the Baltic coasts, and 
to supply a profitable trade, which not only provides the 
inland market with smoked and salted fish, but since 
transit has been so much quickened and perfected, sends 
fresh fish, alive or in ice, through long distances. Elbing 
lampreys, Pomeranian flounders, and Kiel sprats are 
widely esteemed. The herring especially forms an im- 
portant element in the food of the people throughout 
a wide area. 

The traveller who crosses Schleswig-Holstein from 

the Baltic to the shores of the North Sea, and expects 

to pass immediately into a region of 

The German active international trade and rich life, 

Countries of ... r . . . £ , .. ... 

the North Sea. Wl11 find his first advance disappointing. 
The whole peninsula turns its face de- 
cidedly to the Baltic, whose waves and whose trade it 
receives with wide-opened arms of land, taking them into 
cheerful and safe bays, while the west side of the country 
is beaten, torn, and swept by the wild winds and turbu- 
lent waves of the North Sea. Only in the summer and 
early autumn are the bathing-places of Sylt and the 



NORTH GERMANY 291 

neighbouring islands peopled by landsmen, who come 
here for a few weeks to listen to the regular beat of 
the mighty waves, and to refresh themselves in the sea- 
foam before returning to the long and enervating im- 
prisonment of their working places. During the greater 
part of the year stillness prevails upon these islands 
and the shores behind. Their " geest " country is not 
fertile, and is thinly peopled. Farther to the south there 
comes a strip of rich marshland sheltered by a dike, 
where cattle are fattened, and agriculture is profitable. 
But it is not until the estuary of the Elbe that the tide 
rushing in opens a gate to the commerce of the world. 

The river Elbe is bordered by low marshes with pro- 
tecting dikes for nearly sixty miles from its wide mouth. 
Then, on the right bank, at Blankenese, the high bank 
of the diluvial tableland appears, close to the river, 
its hills covered by gay gardens and country-houses. 
Here, between the arms of the North and South Elbe, 
which presently reunite, begins a region of islands, in- 
tersected by variable watercourses. This alluvial district, 
however, lies within a firm framework ; eight miles 
above Blankenese on both sides of the valley — which 
at Harburg and Hamburg is only six miles wide — 
the high " geest " country comes close up to the South 
Elbe on the one hand, and to the North Elbe on the 
other. Here was a crossing marked out by nature, for 
the valley widens out again farther up. Even in the 
time of Charlemagne the Franks had secured the right 
bank. There Hamburg arose at the mouth of the 
Alster. In a position threatened on three sides its 
existence was long insecure ; it was burnt now by pirate 
Northmen, now by the Wends, now by the Danes. It 
was not until the twelfth century, when the German 
frontier was advanced, that tranquil development became 
possible, and new strength was given by the immigra- 
tion of the citizens of Bardowik, a trading town higher 
up the river, which had been flourishing upon the next 
crossing-place of the road from Lubeck to Luneburg, 
and was destroyed in 11 89. In the thirteenth century 



292 CENTRAL EUROPE 

the Alster was dammed up for the benefit of the mills,, 
and one of the most charming features in the landscape 
of the town, the lake of the Alster basin, was artificially 
formed. This sheet of water gave security to the place,, 
and the alliance with Liibeck, which formed the germ 
of the great and progressive Hanseatic League, gave it 
an opportunity of increasing its power and its posses- 
sions undisturbed. But it long remained a Hanse town 
of only the second rank. It was the discovery of 
America and the increase of activity on the Atlantic 
that gave Hamburg its growing prosperity, while Liibeck 
fell into the background. Active communication was. 
entered into with England ; and although Germany re- 
mained excluded from trans-oceanic colonisation, yet 
Hamburg's spirit of enterprise found openings that were 
both attractive and remunerative, first in the trade of 
Brazil, then in the whale-fisheries of Spitsbergen. The 
most decisive circumstance in the trading relations of 
Hamburg was the rise to independence of the English 
colonies in North America. The violence of the Napo- 
leonic period indeed interrupted this hopeful course of 
progress, but in the nineteenth century it continued in a 
brilliant manner. 

The embouchure of the Bille and that of the Alster 
open out into wide gulfs, and afford an opportunity for 
the formation of excellent basins from which canals (the 
'-' Fleets ") run between the lines of houses and ware- 
houses. But trading vessels lie even in the middle of the 
river loading or unloading by the assistance of flat- 
bottomed boats plying to and from the bank, and a pic- 
ture of confused animation is presented such as can be 
matched nowhere upon the Continent. The unexpected 
strides made by trade in the last twenty or thirty years 
have rendered all the earlier arrangements inadequate. A 
vast rearrangement of the whole harbour was undertaken 
in 1882, when Hamburg decided to join the German 
Customs Union, and only to retain for the future a cer- 
tain clearly marked off portion of its shore, waters, and 
islands as a free port. A space of nearly four square 



NORTH GERMANY 293 

miles, mainly opposite to Hamburg, on the south bank 
of the North Elbe, has been laid out as a free harbour, 
which in addition to the roomy basin with its long quays, 
appliances for loading, railways, and extensive ware- 
houses, contains great shipbuilding yards and other 
workshops, but no dwelling-houses. Other basins and 
canals more closely connected with the town serve the 
traffic, principally such as comes down the river, that 
passes under the Customs Union and moves within its 
rule. 

Hamburg does not confine itself to acting as an inter- 
mediary for the exchange of Germany's products with 
those of neighbouring countries, and even of remote 
zones ; it undertakes a great part of the manufacture of 
the raw materials brought into it and passes them on in 
their completed state to the places of their consumption. 
Factories in which coffee is roasted, chocolate made, 
rice peeled, palm-oil and ground-nuts worked to soap, 
deal with tropical products, while raw materials from 
North America are worked up in grease refineries and 
margarine factories, and wheat from the other side of the 
ocean is ground in steam-mills. The vast shipping trade 
not only employs the yards, but gives work to a number 
of trades that supply various ship fittings or necessaries 
for the crews. Thus, in this greatest commercial town 
of the Continent, the proportion of persons engaged 
in productive industries (which is 43 per cent.) surpasses 
that of persons engaged in commerce and traffic (3 9 ^ 
per cent.). 

The river brings down sugar, salt, alkalies, timber, 
stone, and also coal, and carries up wheat, meal, colonial 
wares, nitrate of potassium, and, above all, petroleum. 
In bulk English coal and wheat exceed all other goods 
brought by sea ; saltpetre, iron, and petroleum come 
next, and colonial produce only after these. But in 
value coffee stands far ahead, and sometimes accounts 
for one-eighth of the total sum. Then follow wheat, 
wool and cotton, hides and skins, saltpetre, ores and 
pig iron, other metals, materials for dyeing and tanning, 



294 CENTRAL EUROPE 

oil-seeds, and oils. The whole movement of trade in 
Hamburg, including that in precious metals, showed 
imports to the amount of 3856 millions in 1900, and 
exports to the amount of 3309, thus giving the town 
the third place, beside Liverpool, in the trade of the 
world after London and New York. Great lines of 
mail-steamers connect Hamburg with every part of the 
world. 

This development has increased the population of 
Hamburg to a degree that has overflowed the limits of 
the republic's small territory. The actual town of Ham- 
burg, whose streets once lay between the Elbe and the 
basin of the Alster, has now grown inland until the whole 
expanse of the lake, divided by the magnificent Lombard 
Bridge, is enclosed by suburbs. On the north-east the 
town of Wandsbeck in Holstein is touched, and on the 
west, along the bank of the Elbe, Hamburg runs into 
Altona, which, although the largest town in Holstein and 
a busy manufacturing place, appears to be but one of 
its suburbs. If, besides some smaller places, we include 
the town of Harburg, the meeting place of the western 
railways, we shall find that the whole population of the 
busy economic aggregation that has crystallised around 
the old centre of Hamburg amounts to 1,000,000. 

The long distance of Hamburg from the mouth of the 
Elbe gives special importance to the little territory of 
Cuxhaven, which was acquired by the free town as early 
as 1393, and whose signal light guides vessels on their 
entrance into the river ; it also possesses a harbour for 
use in winter and in emergencies. 

The immense strides made by Hamburg are no doubt 
due in very great measure to its geographical position. 
It lies at the south-eastern corner of the North Sea, the 
farthest point attainable by oceanic navigation, and at the 
opening of the greatest river system of Germany — a net- 
work of inland navigation the ramifications of which 
reach to Prague, Kosel, and Thorn, and run round and 
through the capital of the Empire. No wonder that no 
other German port can keep pace with Hamburg. There 



NORTH GERMANY 295 

is only one which has bravely tried to do so : Bremen, 
the oldest of German sea towns. Bremen maintained 
its position of superiority up to the sixteenth century. 
Since that time, however, it has felt more and more 
keenly the disadvantage of standing on a smaller river, 
which neither brings down such large loads from the 
interior nor allows the largest sort of vessels to come up 
from the sea, fifty miles away, and which, moreover, 
being narrower, could more easily be closed by jealous 
neighbours. The town has held out bravely even against 
serious enemies, such as Sweden, which maintained 
a dominion over the lower reaches of the Weser, 
acquired in 1648 — and true to the old motto, " Navi- 
gare necesse est ; vivere non est necesse " (" Go in boats 
we must ; live we need not "), has never permitted itself 
to be thrust back from the sea and its trade. In the 
nineteenth century the Weser, even though the tide comes 
up as far as Bremen, was found quite inadequate to bring 
up sea-going vessels, the size of which was constantly 
increasing, to the immediate vicinity of the town. Bremen 
was thus forced in 1827 to buy from Hanover a strip of 
land on the right bank, thirty-five miles lower down, and 
there to lay out Bremerhaven. The basins there hollowed 
out, whose number has lately been increased to five, are 
adapted for the largest possible ocean-going steamers. 
They are the workshop of the North German Lloyd, 
whose swift steamers go to America, Eastern Asia, and 
Australia. A relative diminution in the importance of 
Bremerhaven only resulted when Bremen itself again 
made efforts to take a larger direct share in sea trade. 
In the last ten years the channel of the Weser has been 
deepened to eighteen feet as far up as Bremen. Great 
new basins just below the old town were formed as a 
free-trade area when Bremen completed its adhesion to 
the German Customs Union in 1888. The number of 
ships, too, belonging to Bremen itself is especially re- 
markable, and is by no means so much behind that of 
Hamburg as its population is. A few figures from the 



296 CENTRAL EUROPE 

statistics of 1901 will show what the importance of 
Bremen is to Germany in this respect : — 





Vessels. 


Registered Tons. 


Crews. 


Bremen 
Hamburg . 
Kingdom of Prussia 
German Empire . 


. 566 

. 918 
. 2082 
• 3883 


833,860 
1,443,976 

417,926 
2,826,400 


14,755 
21,544 

n,525 
50,556 



Bremen is distinguished by the large average tonnage 
of its vessels. It is indeed in far-reaching oceanic traffic 
that Bremen stands out so honourably. The trade is 
mostly with the United States, not like that of Hamburg 
with Great Britain ; and though the whole volume of 
traffic is less in Bremen, yet in some articles, in the 
imports of tobacco, rice, and cotton, Bremen takes the 
first place on the Continent, and in regard to the first 
two articles, the first place in the world. The character 
of Bremen's industries is regulated accordingly. They 
are partly connected directly with shipping, and partly 
employed upon imported materials such as cotton and 
jute. The great tobacco factories are scattered in villages 
far beyond the suburbs that have surrounded the vener- 
able kernel of the old city with comfortable roomy villas, 
where it is possible to live in more ease and quiet than 
in the great urban bustle of Hamburg. 

The Jade bay, an old estuary of the Weser, was 
chosen by Prussia in 1853 as a naval station. Wilhelms- 
haven grew up amid hard struggles with deceitful marsh 
fevers, storm-floods, and the continual silting up of the 
entrance to the harbour, which, while unapproachable for 
enemies, was not free from danger to its own ships. To 
commerce the place can never be of much importance, as 
there is no waterway from the interior to the bay. 

In this respect the Dollart, an opening made farther 
west by similar incursions of the sea into the coast 
of Friesland, is greatly superior to the Jade bay. The 
Ems, indeed, is but a modest stream, running in a sand- 
bed between extensive moors, and Emden, which was a 
flourishing trading town at the end of the sixteenth and 
beginning of the seventeenth centuries, has become a 



NORTH GERMANY 297 

quieter place since the river turned away from it. A 
new era is at this very moment opening before this 
district of poor land and strong people. The completion 
of the canal between Dortmund and the Ems opens out 
what has been a quiet cul-de-sac into a main artery of 
traffic ; and when the canal from Dortmund to the 
Rhine has been added, the waterway of the Ems will 
assume the importance of a mouth of the Rhine on 
German territory. New life may then animate the shores 
of the Dollart. 

Westward of the Ems, in former centuries, before 
the moor-colonies had carried away great stretches of its 
upper surface of peat and brought the under surface 
into cultivation, the Bourtanger Moor used to be a great 
desert, a wide natural borderland, holding East and West 
Friesland apart, notwithstanding the common nature of 
their country and the likeness in race and speech of their 
peoples. This fact undeniably contributed to the separa- 
tion of Germany and the Netherlands. 

Note 07t Authorities. — An admirable monograph: Die Lander 
Braunschweig und Hannover, was published in 1867, and founded the 
reputation of its author, H. Guthe ; the districts along the coast of the 
North Sea have never been better described. 

A. Zweck published an account of Lithuania in 1898, and of Masuria 
in 1900. 



CHAPTER XVIII 

THE NETHERLANDS 

It was not owing to geographical necessity but to his- 
torical developments that the western wing of the North 
German lowland, a district among the inhabitants of 
which German races largely preponderate, came to be 
politically separate. It appears as the last outcome — and 
the only one which has succeeded in attaining any per- 
manence — of the repeated attempts to form a neutral and 
independent territory between France and Germany. At 
a period in which, roads being but ill developed, rivers 
formed the main arteries of communication, such an idea 
might very well be suggested by the prevailing northerly 
flow of the Rhine and the Meuse, corresponding in 
direction to the Saone and Rhone. Thus a girdle of 
communications ran across the continent, well marked 
off both from the convergence of the French water- 
ways upon the basin of Paris, and from the natural 
lines of traffic that accompany the Danube and the 
southern border of the great lowlands. The Treaty of 
Verdun, in 843, created a State, Lotharingia, reaching 
from the North Sea to the Mediterranean between the 
above-mentioned rivers and the Alps. Although this 
State, with its union of widely divergent races and tongues, 
showed, from the first moment of its creation, no hope 
of long endurance, and in fact fell to pieces very 
quickly, the idea of it awoke again, when, in the fifteenth 
century, the Dukes of Burgundy, of a collateral line to 
that of Valois, became lords of the Netherlands. Their 
despotic rule succeeded for the first time in welding into 
unity the territory, hitherto totally disunited, which had 
fallen piece by piece into their hands. Under their rule 



THE NETHERLANDS 299 

the representatives of the different provinces came to- 
gether for the first time in the assembly of the States- 
General, and soon felt themselves a power ; for the policy 
of Charles the Bold sought its greatest support in the 
prosperity of these provinces, and after his death, his 
daughter, becoming altogether dependent on their help, 
was obliged to give them in the Great Privilege (1477) a 
large measure of political rights. Her grandson, Charles 
the Fifth, completed, in 1548, the severance of the long- 
weakened tie between the seventeen provinces of the 
Netherlands and the German Empire, and by means of 
the Pragmatic Sanction united them " indivisibly to all 
eternity " to the lands of the Spanish throne. Thus these 
districts, which had long been enriched by industrial 
activity, and had become the point of departure of a busy 
European commerce, were drawn into the trade of the 
wider world opened up by the discoveries of Spain. This 
was the great time of Antwerp. Wealth and power in the 
Netherlands had their centre of gravity in Brabant and 
Flanders. Their prosperous and healthy evolution was in- 
terrupted by the tyranny of Philip the Second, and by the 
war for freedom which it forced upon the Netherlands. This 
war tore the Netherlands into two territories which were 
thereafter divided. The north, sheltered behind rivers and 
flooded hollows, preserved its Reformed creed and its 
independence ; its enterprising towns grew up, as Venice 
once did in the shelter of its lagoons, to be leaders in the 
trade of the world. The south, however, was again com- 
pelled to bow to the Spanish yoke, and, excluded by the 
Dutch from trade by sea, declined speedily from its con- 
dition of prosperity, especially after its territory had been 
diminished by French conquests and had been made the 
theatre of repeated battles. The respective developments 
of the Free and the Spanish Netherlands were thus too 
distinctly different for it to be possible that any Congress 
of Vienna should weld them once more into a single 
State. The year 1831 brought their division. The 
kingdom of Holland (12,740 square miles ; 5 millions of 
inhabitants) and the kingdom of Belgium (11,370 square 



3°° 



CENTRAL EUROPE 



miles ; 6\ millions) subsist side by side as political and 
social organisms, having very different foundations of life 
and very different aims. 

There is surely no other country in the world whose 
area, productivity, and international position have been 
so decisively affected by human wisdom and 
perseverance. From the hand of nature the 
Batavians and Frisians received but a poor, unfriendly 
dwelling-place. It had tracts of barely raised sand and 
marsh, dismal heaths with scanty trees, often inundated in 
their low-lying parts by wide sluggish rivers, and always 
threatened by the tides that beat upon the dunes ; its soil 
was unsteady and amphibious, and there was no sub- 
stratum of solid rock. The dwellers on the coast engaged 
in incessant conflict with the sea, against which every inch 
of fertile marsh-land had to be suspiciously protected, and 
from whose dangers the fisherman had to wrest his gains, 
led a quiet existence shut out from that of the interior. 
To-day the richest nation of Central Europe dwells in 
magnificent towns upon these same sites. 

The marshes upon whose pastures milch-cows graze, 
and whose fields, cultivated under a careful system of 
rotation of crops, produce abundant harvests, are sheltered 
from the sea and from the artificially regulated network of 
intersecting rivers and canals by solid dikes, with a 
perfect arrangement for letting off the water. The busy 
life, radiating from the great centres of commerce, 
demands for its subsistence so large a supply of all rural 
products, that high cultivation becomes remunerative even 
in the remotest regions of the little country, and enables 
a population much larger than that of the naturally 
similar districts in East Friesland and Oldenburg to live 
comfortably. 

The kingdom, however, divides into several districts, 
marked by considerable economic differences. That which 
is most completely cut off is the north-eastern part, outside 
of the Rhine basin : West Friesland up to the Vecht. The 
strongest centre of genuine Frieslanders that still remains 
is to be found established here. Agriculture and cattle- 



THE NETHERLANDS 301 

breeding flourish on the soil cleared from the barren 
covering of peat. 

The " geest " country on the south, up to the borders 
of Rhenish Prussia and Belgium, is intersected by the 
Meuse and by the arms of the Rhine. The conditions are 
not very favourable to agriculture, and the animals kept 
are mostly sheep. Large textile industries here begin to 
appear in many places, and to provide a living for part of 
the population. The most important towns lie at crossing- 
places of the rivers : thus, Maestricht, the chief town of 
Limburg, on the Meuse between Cologne and Antwerp, 
and Arnheim and Nimeguen respectively at the first 
bridges over the two arms into which the Rhine divides 
in Holland after leaving German territory at the busy 
border town of Emmerich. While Nimeguen marks the 
end of the diluvial plateau that runs northward between 
the Meuse and the Rhine, and so invites the road running 
in the same direction to cross the Waal at this point, 
traffic comes to the high right bank of the Lek at Arn- 
heim. Here is the picturesque raised border of the barren 
Veluwe, the dry tableland of North Gueldres, situated 
between the Lek, the Yssel, and the Zuyder Zee. 

The real " netherland," however, the country sur- 
rounded by the thickest complex of watercourses and cun- 
ningly protected against inundation, the seat of Holland's 
greatest international trade, is not entered until we 
reach, at Utrecht, the first of the four marsh provinces, 
which comprise but 27 per cent, of the area and 50 
per cent, of the population of Holland. Utrecht, which 
is raised a little on the border of extensive hollows, was 
the most important town of this region before civilisation 
had completely subjugated it. Its name (Ultrajectum) is 
a reminder that, in the days of the Romans, the main 
branch of the Rhine ran by, and passing Leyden, reached 
the sea at Katwijk. This branch is now closed, and 
Utrecht is only joined to the Zuyder Zee by means of the 
Vecht. But, notwithstanding this change in the water- 
ways, the significance of Utrecht is not altogether a thing 
of the past. The old university town, with its many 



3 02 CENTRAL EUROPE 

towers, remains a centre of roads. As the key to the 
entrances both of South and North Holland, it is to-day, 
no less than formerly, distinctly the most strategically 
important point in the country. The isthmus between 
the Zuyder Zee and the Lek, over which Utrecht mounts 
guard, is but twenty miles wide, and the passage across it 
is impeded by watercourses on both sides of the town. 

Near the western shore the dunes, presenting solid 
and dry soil, clear springs, and timber, invited settlers. 
'sGravenhage was a hunting castle of the Counts of 
Holland among the woods of the dunes. Afterwards it 
became the royal residence of Holland, the Hague, a 
town on dry ground without piles or canals (grachten), 
situated amid lovely gardens and parks. 

Leyden was a seaport as long as the Old Rhine broke 
through the dunes at this point. In later days, after its 
recovery from the severe siege, which it so heroically sus- 
tained, it owed a world-wide reputation to its university, 
and prosperity to its flourishing cloth-mills. Its decline 
in the eighteenth century was immediately followed by 
a diminution of population. Haarlem on the north was 
clearly destined by the springs of the dunes to carry 
on brewing, bleaching, and dyeing, and, in spite of many 
fluctuations, has maintained considerable prosperity. The 
horticulture of Holland, too, has its principal seat here. 

But though so attractive and so rich in intellectual 
wealth, the three towns of the dunes have remained 
far behind the two great centres of Holland's sea trade, 
Amsterdam and Rotterdam. At the south-west corner of 
the Zuyder Zee there was a considerable creek running 
westward almost to the dunes of the coast — the Ij Here. 
When the Zuyder Zee was broken open by storms and 
high tides, and changed from an inland basin into a great 
gulf of the sea, this became a fine natural harbour. 
The catastrophe gave a place in international trade to 
Amsterdam, a little town — built on artificial foundations 
and on piles driven through the slush into firm ground — 
on the southern bank of the Ij and at the mouth of 
the Amster, a shallow and sluggish stream, coming north- 



THE NETHERLANDS 303 

ward from the country to the west of Utrecht. Amster- 
dam became a seaport, and was for a time affiliated 
to the German Hanseatic League. Its importance, how- 
ever, remained limited until the war for liberty drove 
citizens of Antwerp and other towns to this securely 
sheltered spot. Though it had not even firm ground to 
stand on, the town grew with astounding rapidity. Here, 
in 1602, arose the East Indian trading company, the 
leader of colonial acquisitions in Malaysia. About the 
middle of the seventeenth century Amsterdam was the 
greatest trading place of the world, and kept the lead 
for several decades, even after the competition of England 
had increased into open enmity. The eighteenth century 
brought a pause, and its close a marked decline in 
trade, wealth, and population. Not until after the 
Congress of Vienna did Amsterdam begin to make 
progress again, and this progress had to be conquered 
by laborious struggles with the natural defects of the 
position, which were gradually becoming more and more 
felt. The entrance of the Ij was filled up with sand, 
and communication with the Zuyder Zee became more 
difficult. The whole basin, shallow as it is, was no satis- 
factory entering place for the enormous vessels of modern 
days. The Venice of the North did not, however, yield 
helplessly to being cut off from the great trade of the sea. 
It amazed the world by the North Holland canal, com- 
pleted in 1825, which runs fifty miles northward through 
the marshes as far as Helder on the strait between North 
Holland and Texel. Not satisfied by this way, the Dutch 
in 1876, in westerly direction, opened the North Sea 
Canal in the dried-up bed of the Ij and across the 
dunes. The continual improvement of this waterway 
is still being carried on. On the other hand Amsterdam 
was connected with the districts at the mouth of the 
Rhine by means of the Merwede canal, completed in 
1 892, which gave the town a share in those advantages 
that had so much favoured the progress of her rival, 
Rotterdam. The vast works of modern water engineer- 
ing have given Amsterdam fresh commercial prosperity. 



304 CENTRAL EUROPE 

The staple trade of the place is in Dutch colonial 
produce, but it also receives large quantities of wheat, 
timber, coal, petroleum, and wine, which it passes on 
into the interior. The export trade deals with Dutch 
dairy products despatched to England, and more largely 
with commodities from the German hinterland. 

The free communication with the hinterland will 
always give Rotterdam a great advantage ; the town itself 
lies upon the north bank of the Lek, but a branch of the 
Waal, which runs in higher up, makes this the destination 
of commerce from both arms of the Rhine. It is true 
that the German towns of the Rhine more and more 
send their own vessels to foreign shores. The traffic of 
Rotterdam is, however, constantly increasing. The town 
shares with Antwerp the inestimable advantage of lying 
directly opposite to the estuary of the Thames, and is in the 
near neighbourhood of the Straits of Dover, the gate of in- 
ternational trade. It surpasses Antwerp by lying nearer to 
the sea, and having behind it the vast basin of the Rhine. 

The leading position of Rotterdam is assured beyond 
all question by the manner in which the southern part 
of the Rhine delta is broken up into a number of islands, 
upon which only places of limited influence could arise. 
Only the most south-westerly island of the archipelago 
of Zealand, Walcheren, has had its conditions of life 
altered by the railway that links it with North Brabant.. 
The advantages of this change, however, are not reaped 
by Middelburg, the old capital of Zealand, which lies in 
the centre of the island, but by Flushing, the excellent 
and rising harbour on its southern shore at the mouth 
of the Scheldt. This is an important starting-point of 
passenger traffic with England. The great mart of trade, 
however, has lain since the time when the Dutch ceased 
to be able to close the Scheldt, not here on the projection 
of the mainland, but at Antwerp, the innermost point of 
the estuary that can be reached by sea vessels. The 
southern bank of the wide estuary also belongs to Holland, 
and so does Sluys, on the other side, the old port of 
Bruges. 



THE NETHERLANDS 305 

While the natural endowments of Holland are in quite 
a unique degree all of one kind, those of Belgium are 
more varied in character. In part this country 
recalls the conformation, the forms of settlement 
and of labour, of the Prussian Rhine province, with its 
poor and barren mountain country and its thickly peopled 
districts of industry. Very different from the social and 
political life of Holland, running in placid grooves, is the 
struggle of nationalities and parties by which the politics 
of Belgium are disturbed. In one particular only is 
Belgium the more closely united, and that is in religion.. 
The counter-reformation here achieved a complete con- 
quest. The country is as Roman Catholic as Spain or 
Italy, and resembles them too in the extremely low state 
of public education. 

The poorest part of the country is the south, the 
Forest of Ardennes, in the provinces of Luxemburg and 
Namur. Here there are considerable areas in which the 
density of population falls below 100 to the square mile. 
Between the lonely farmsteads, which are united into very 
large communes, lie little towns, which make centres of 
slight communication and markets for the products of the 
high lying and not very profitable land. Of the valleys, 
whose deep and winding furrows run up into the high- 
land, only that of the Meuse, which passes quite across, 
is wide enough to carry a considerable roadway as well 
as the waterway. 

Namur is the point at which this transverse valley 
ends, and falls into the important longitudinal cutting of 
the valley of the Sambre and Meuse. 

At the point where the Meuse changes its north- 
eastward for a northerly direction, and where four 
tongues of the highland, divided by three tributaries, send 
their respective roadways down to the crossing-place of 
the river, Liege arose in the early Middle Ages. It was 
the first place upon the Continent to open out and work 
its coalfield. Metal-work was one of the main branches 
of industry, even in the mediaeval city, whose prosperity 
was destroyed by the Burgundians. Only our own iron. 



3 o6 CENTRAL EUROPE 

age gave it a new impulse. Coal-mining and gun 
manufactories are the principal forms of industry of 
this great town, and of its ring of suburbs, which 
extend westwards up to the iron-foundries of Seraing, 
and eastwards in a loosely linked chain as far as the 
cloth-mills of the frontier town of Verviers. North of 
the town the existence of a rich bed of lead and zinc 
ores has made the division of the borderland of Altenberg 
(Moresnet) so difficult that the district is held in common 
by Belgium and Prussia, and forms one of the most 
remarkable peculiarities of the map of Europe. The 
combination of the Devonian formation, from whose strata 
the iron of the region also comes, and of the coal measures, 
together with the favourable situation, gives so dense a 
population to the neighbourhood of Liege that there are 
more than 400,000 inhabitants in 120 square miles. The 
presence at the extreme limit of French-speaking territory 
of a city rich in historical memories, and possessing a 
university and a technical college, gives a centre of culture 
to this region, and raises it above that of Hainault, which 
extends for forty miles, from Charleroi to Mons (Bergen). 
Here again an area of about 190 square miles supports 
more than 400,000 persons. The coal-mines, which are 
here obliged to go deeper than elsewhere, and penetrate 
more than 5000 feet into the earth in order to reach the 
seams that lie below the covering cretaceous formation, 
form the foundation upon which iron-foundries, glass- 
works both for blown and plate glass, and a number of 
other industries have been raised. The thick network of 
railways is not sufficient for the vast transport of goods. 
Canals connect Charleroi with Brussels, and Mons with 
the main arteries of the Scheldt basin, and thus both 
with Antwerp and Northern France. 

The great increase of population in these industrial 
districts of South Belgium, due in part to immigration, 
has tended to increase in a remarkable degree the share 
of French nationality in the Belgian state without 
altering the local boundary of the tongues. The border- 
line between the French and the Flemish languages 



THE NETHERLANDS 307 

coincides approximately with the northern border of 
the provinces of Hainault and Liege towards Flan- 
ders and Limburg ; but in the south of Brabant it 
extends as far as the battlefield of Waterloo. The 
French portions of the upper town of Brussels, together 
with its one entirely French suburb (Ixelles), form an 
enclave of French speech in the Flemish country. The 
social conditions are here very different. The earth 
affords no mineral wealth upon which industries native 
to the soil could arise. Thus the population of Limburg, 
which is mostly occupied with agriculture, is compara- 
tively thin, and does not collect into townships of any 
great size. In Brabant we find the beginnings of the 
Belgian textile industry, which was the earliest of its 
kind on the Continent, and which, in the course of its 
famous history, has dealt with every attainable material, 
and reached a high degree of efficiency in every branch 
undertaken. The point, however, which is the distin- 
guishing characteristic of Brabant is its central position 
in the interior of Belgium. This it was which decided 
the Dukes of Burgundy in their choice of a capital for 
their possessions in the Netherlands. At the expense of 
Liege, which they destroyed, and of Bruges, whose inde- 
pendent spirit resisted them, they raised into prominence 
Brussels, which lies between these towns. Brussels, 
situated between the sea and the Meuse, between the 
Rhine and the Ardennes, was particularly well adapted 
to become a centre of many radiating railway lines. It 
was less favourably placed in the matter of communi- 
cation by water. But the need of getting coal from the 
Sambre caused a canal to be made from Charleroi. On 
the north, the Senne, which was by nature only large 
enough for little boats, marked the line for a connection 
by canal with the mouth of the Scheldt. The old inland 
town will be practically transformed into a seaport. 

The river Scheldt unites the waters of the greater 
part of the Belgian lowland. It could not often happen 
that a river whose source lies but 100 miles from its 
mouth, while the lands watered by it do not much exceed 



3 o8 CENTRAL EUROPE 

8000 square miles, should be of such great service to 
traffic. The river system of the Scheldt shows four 
approximately parallel rivers, which at one time were 
perhaps united in pairs. The Antwerp mouth clearly 
corresponds to the eastern pair of rivers, the Rupel 
(Senne) and the Dender ; whilst the Braakman, an 
inlet of the shore which appears to be an extinct mouth, 
corresponds to the western pair, the Scheldt and Lys 
(Leye), which meet at Ghent. As far back, however, as 
we have any trustworthy historical records, the course 
of these rivers has always turned eastward from Ghent to 
join the other rivers on the east. All four rivers are 
navigable nearly to their sources, and are connected with 
French waterways. 

The tide rises in the Scheldt as far as the lock-gates 
of the canalised reach at Ghent. Even in the Middle 
Ages, and at the beginning of modern times, this town 
had a shorter connection with the sea by means of canals 
that ran to the north and north-west, and at the present 
it takes a direct share in the marine trade by means 
of an artificial waterway to Terneuzen. At the opening 
of the modern period, Ghent was perhaps the greatest 
manufacturing town in the world. Its 40,000 weavers 
were the nucleus of the military power that defended its 
independence. The old parts of the town, intersected by 
canals and lying between the Scheldt and the Lys, still 
show the character of that period of prosperity. It came 
to an end when the Netherlands were divided, and the 
southern provinces which had remained under the do- 
minion of Spain, were excluded by Holland from the sea 
trade. Its ranks were then thinned by the emigration 
of many of its citizens. Not until the nineteenth century 
did new life return with the cotton trade. The industrial 
life of the present day, contented with very small re- 
turns, is in strong contrast with the monuments of the 
past. 

The old towns of Bruges and Ypres, seats of the linen 
and lace trades, retain but a shadow of their former great- 
ness. Bruges was the first place in the Netherlands that 



THE NETHERLANDS 309 

attained a far-reaching importance. In the thirteenth and 
fourteenth centuries, its port was the chief seat of the 
Netherlands trade with Western Europe and the Mediter- 
ranean, as well as with England and the Hanse Towns. 
Here flourished the earliest manufacture of cloth, whose 
wares travelled over Germany and out into Sclavonic 
lands, and from whose example other nations learned the 
trade. Of the pride and self-confidence exhibited by the 
citizens of Bruges, not only in regard to their commerce, 
but also in regard to politics, the decline of the city has 
left nothing remaining. Outstripped by Ghent as early as 
the fifteenth century, and by Antwerp in the sixteenth, 
international trade gradually abandoned it, as its com- 
munication with the sea grew worse, while, on the other 
hand, the demands of sea-going vessels in the matter of 
depth and space of water were rapidly increasing. None 
of the efforts that have been made in modern times to 
effect a practicable sea communication have so far suc- 
ceeded in bringing fresh life to the place. 

This retirement of the trading towns of Flanders from 
the maritime commerce which they once carried on, 
causes it to be completely concentrated in Antwerp, the 
most important of Belgium's ports. The reason why 
this harbour at the mouth of the Scheldt, although it dates 
back to the early Middle Ages, did not enter into compe- 
tition with the western places which stood far ahead of it 
until the fifteenth century, and why it so suddenly became 
their superior, is to be found in an advantageous change in 
its relation to the sea, which only appeared in the fif- 
teenth century. Of the two estuaries of the Scheldt which 
run around the islands of Beveland and Walcheren, only 
the East Scheldt had, up to that time, been navigable for 
sea-going vessels — a long waterway with a wide curve 
towards the north. It was owing to storms and high 
tides at the beginning of the fifteenth century that the 
coasts of the Netherlands were changed, and that the 
West Scheldt and the Hond, until then narrow and 
shallow entries, so widened and deepened as to open a 
shorter way from the sea to Antwerp. The full advan- 



3 io CENTRAL EUROPE 

tages of this improvement came into play when the Portu- 
guese discoveries changed the old course of eastern trade, 
and the wares of India came to Central Europe, no longer 
by way of Venice, but by the Atlantic Ocean. Antwerp 
became the chief seat of oriental trade, and its inclusion in 
the empire of Charles V. directed to it also the stream of 
goods from the New World. The pen of Guicciardini has 
pictured Antwerp in this period of brilliance. It was but 
short. Its submission at the time of the heroic struggles 
for freedom was of bad omen for Antwerp. Shut off by 
the Dutch from maritime trade, the town withered away 
under the rule of the Habsburgs, until at the dawn of 
the French Revolution the mouth of the Scheldt was once 
more opened to the trade of the city. Great docks were 
built by Napoleon, and the trade by sea received a new 
impulse, paving the way for further commercial pro- 
gress. A hindrance, indeed, was put in its way when 
Belgium became independent, in the shape of Dutch 
duties, levied on the Scheldt until the year 1863. But 
the progress of Antwerp was not now to be checked. 
It is, at the present day, the largest town in Belgium, 
a seaport with a wide hinterland. Among tropical pro- 
ducts india-rubber predominates so largely, since the 
opening up of the Congo State, that Antwerp now 
does perhaps a larger trade in that commodity than 
any other town. Internal communication is served, 
not only by a railway system with many branches — 
the lines from Paris to Amsterdam and from Ostend 
to Cologne cross here — but also by an abundance of 
waterways. 

A characteristic to be noted in considering the relation 
of Belgium to the sea is the weakness of its own mer- 
cantile marine, about one-tenth of that of Holland. 
Thus, while in the ports of Holland the national flag 
still holds an honourable place, second only to that of 
Britain, and in Amsterdam but a little second even to 
that, the harbour of Antwerp is mainly filled by foreign 
shipping. 

In the same way that the great Dutch ports have 



THE NETHERLANDS 311 

in front of them, as outposts for passenger traffic, the Hook 
of Holland and Flushing, so Ostend lies in front of Ant- 
werp, and the steamers plying between it and Dover 
convey more than 120,000 passengers a year. This mail 
line gives Ostend the second place among the ports of 
Belgium, ahead even of Ghent. Ostend is also the head- 
quarters of the Belgian sea-fishery. 

The North Sea is the theatre of the common activities 
of the fishing fleets belonging to all the surrounding 
nations. Each of them considers that a certain strip of 
sea, extending three sea miles outward, measured from 
the low-water mark on its shores and from a straight 
line drawn so as to connect headland with headland on 
each side of bays that run inland, is an integral part of 
its own territories, reserved for the use of the dwellers on 
its own coasts. Within these territorial waters, to which 
belongs, for example, the whole of the Zuyder Zee, a 
fairly rich harvest is gathered from the sea. The shallows 
of the sandbanks that are exposed by the low tides 
retain, behind their fences or in their remoter hollows, 
small fish and mussels that are easily collected. The 
same sandbanks are the seat of an oyster-fishery and 
oyster beds of considerable importance, yielding valuable 
returns both on the western coast of Schleswig and in the 
Netherlands, but especially in the province of Zealand. 
Fishing with draw-nets and with the line, however, is also 
profitable in these waters close to the coast. 

Fishing in the open sea is left to the free competition 
of all the surrounding nations. But as among the diffe- 
rent methods employed trawling interferes with drift-net 
fishing and with line-fishing, with its thousands of ground 
lines, the States interested agreed, at the suggestion of 
England, to a series of police rules, ratified by a conven- 
tion at the Hague in 1882, for the regulation and pro- 
tection of their fisheries on the high seas. One principal 
site of this fishery is the Dogger Bank, off the east coast 
of England. Next to the English, who supply the largest 
contingent to the fishing fleets at this place, the Dutch 
take the chief part, that of Germany and Belgium being 



3 i2 CENTRAL EUROPE 

much smaller. This competition in the fisheries is cer- 
tainly valuable to all the nations concerned, not only for 
the sake of the food-supply thus obtained, but as a school 
for their seamen. 



Note on Authorities. — The most authoritative works upon Holland 
are H. Blink's Nederland en syne Bewoners, 3 vols., 1887-93 ; and Tegeti- 
woordige Staat von Nederland, 1897. 

A general account of Belgium, the joint-production of several dis- 
tinguished men, is given in Patria Belgica, Encyclopedie Nationale 
3 vols., 1873-75. 



CHAPTER XIX 

COMMUNICATIONS 

Central Europe is not so fortunate as to be imme- 
diately surrounded by water, but is enabled to take 
part in international traffic by means of its four 
seas opening in different directions. The importance of 
these depends not only upon their size and the nature 
of their junction with the great oceans which are the 
arena of the world's commerce, but also upon the degree 
to which they penetrate into the land, and admit sea 
traffic into the interior of the Continent. The Adriatic 
hardly allows any access at all. Steep shores and 
rugged mountains arrest the course of sea-vessels ; the 
Narenta alone opens to them her sluggish lower reaches 
as far as Metkovits. Very different is the stretch of 
country opened to seafarers by the navigability of the 
Lower Danube from the Black Sea. The chief har- 
bours upon it for sea-ships lie nearly ioo miles inland, 
while sea-going vessels of the smaller kind have often 
ascended nearly to the Iron Gates. In the Baltic there 
is no place much over forty miles from the coast which 
is accessible to sea-going ships. The full oceanic tide 
is only felt by Central Europe along the shores of 
the North Sea, but the head of the tideway far in- 
land does not mark the end of the traffic. Cologne 
(180 miles from the sea) is the farthest point upon the 
Rhine to which ships from the sea come up in great 
number, and the size of the vessels is here limited 
not so much by the depth of the river (10 feet), which 
might easily be doubled, as by the inadequacy of the 
Dutch channel. 

There is hardly another spot among the seas of 



3 X 4 



CENTRAL EUROPE 



Europe to be compared with that junction of traffic at 
the south-western angle of the North Sea where the 
mouths of the Thames, the Scheldt, the Meuse and the 
Rhine converge, near to the entrance of the English 
Channel. Subordinate only to this is the south-eastern, 
angle of the same sea. Here not only ends the largest 
river system of the North German lowland, but also 
opens the passage to another sea, the Kaiser Wilhelm 
Canal, navigable for ships of the largest size, making a 
line of connection between Brunsbiittel at the mouth 
of the Elbe and the port of Kiel. This canal was com- 
pleted in the years between 1887 and 1895, and is the 
greatest achievement of modern canal-building. Of its 
63 miles of length, only six coincide with the basins of 
natural lakes ; its depth is 30 feet, its width 72 feet at 
the bottom, and 190 feet at the water-level. The doubt 
whether the work would ever repay the costs of its con- 
struction caused many decades to go by before it was 
carried out. Although the new free port of Copenhagen 
keeps for the Sound — as was to be expected — by far 
the greater part of the traffic, the inlet of Kiel has also 
become a busy exit from the Baltic. 

For heavy ladings such as go by sea, internal water- 
ways still remain very useful. The Netherlands for 
this reason possessed a vast advantage in having their 
country intersected by a network of rivers, and in being 
easily able to give closer meshes to the net by means of 
canals. Even if we disregard smaller ramifications, the 
whole length of navigable waterways in Holland amounts 
to 4875 miles. Belgium, with 1375 miles, comes next in 
this respect, but its nature made the cutting of artificial 
waterways more difficult. These two countries, the com- 
bined navigable watercourses of which happen to amount 
to just one-fourth of the circumference of the globe, fall in 
this particular but a little below the totality of the German 
Empire, which has 8750 miles, and still less below the 
great territory of Austro-Hungary with 7220 miles. 

Towards the interior of the continent, not only do irre- 
gularities of conformation increase, but the value of water- 



COMMUNICATIONS 315 

ways is limited by the greater severity of the winter. 
In laying out artificial waterways these characteristics 
have to be reckoned with. It is precisely, however, in 
extensive inland districts where distances are very great 
that the cheapness of water carriage for heavy goods is 
most fully felt. Owing to this cheapness alone it be- 
comes possible for Upper Silesia to smelt Swedish ores, 



- — /Vav/gra6/e ft/isers, ■■ '■ ■■ Cana/s, Cana/s Projected 

Fig. 38. — The Waterways of Central Europe. 

and for Mannheim to distribute Roumanian corn over 
South Germany. The farthest internal ports of Central 
Europe, to each of which more than 50,000 tons of 
goods are annually brought up by natural waterways, are 
Strassburg, Heilbronn, Frankfort, Dortmund, Hameln, 
Prague, Berlin, Kosel, Thorn, Elbing, Konigsberg, Tilsit, 
and in the Danube basin Ratisbon. 



3 i6 CENTRAL EUROPE 

Along that section of the Danube which follows the 
southern border of the mountains of Central Germany- 
there are several points which invite the opening of 
transverse waterways across the principal watershed of 
Central Europe. The idea which occupied the enter- 
prising mind of Charlemagne has been carried into execu- 
tion between Bamberg and Kelheim, where the courses of 
the Regnitz and the Altmuhl have been connected by 
means of the Danube and Main canal, which is no 
miles long and 4 feet deep, and crosses the watershed 
at a height of 1440 feet. Canals from the Elbe and the 
Oder to the Danube are projected and already approved 
by the Austrian Parliament. The opening of the Danube 
and Oder canal will result in a vast interchange of com- 
modities between the industrial districts of Upper Silesia 
and the fruitful plains of Moravia and Hungary. For the 
present, however, in the matter of water communication in 
Central Europe the Mediterranean basin is absolutely and 
completely divided from the basin of the Northern Seas. 
For in the same way that the Ludovic Canal between the 
Danube and the Main must be reckoned useless for com- 
munication on a large scale, so the Rhine and Rhone 
canal between Miilhausen and Montbeliard has ceased 
since the restoration of Alsace to Germany to carry more 
than an insignificant traffic. 

The great activity of Germany in the improvement 
of waterways has been confined to the connection of 
neighbouring river systems running in the same direction 
upon the northern slope. Even in this department much 
remains to be done. While on the east of the Elbe a 
twofold communication with the Oder exists, and a 
single one to the Vistula, there is an absence on the 
west of any transverse communication between the Elbe 
and the Rhine. The Prussian diet has recently rejected 
the Government proposal to construct two canals by 
which the lately completed waterway from Dortmund to 
the mouth of the Ems would be connected on the east 
with the Elbe at Magdeburg and on the west with the 
Rhine. The plan has doubtless not been definitely laid 



COMMUNICATIONS 317 

aside. It will revive, for prosperous districts with a great 
future before them demand its execution, and are ready 
to make sacrifices for it. 

The interest in the care of water communications, 
which has been so marked during the last twenty or thirty 
years, was called forth by the great interchange of com- 
modities due to increased economic activity. Railways 
alone no longer seemed to be sufficient, in spite of the 
unquestionable advantages which had secured to them the 
first rank in methods of communication. They are less 
dependent upon climate and upon the configuration of the 
country ; freer in their choice of route, and therefore 
better adapted to meet most of the needs of traffic. The 
railway system of the Central European States extends to 
63,000 miles, but the closeness of its web varies enor- 
mously. While the whistle of a locomotive has never yet 
echoed through the mountains of Montenegro, and in 
Servia and Bulgaria there are but i| miles of railway 
line to 100 square miles of country, the same area is 
traversed in Saxony and in the kingdom of Belgium by 
32 miles, and in the coal basin of the Ruhr by as many 
as 55 miles. 

As the railways had to replace the old highways, 
they often followed the track of these, but the rapidity of 
their steam-progress allowed them to choose the easier 
country, even when this involved a considerable detour. 
Where the larger mountain-chains rise, main lines run 
along their edges. The most conspicuous example is the 
way in which the line between Marseilles, Geneva, Vienna, 
Cracow, and Odessa, both termini of which might be 
reached from Vienna in some thirty-six hours, makes a 
curve to follow the long folded mountains. In the great 
lowlands the railways develop freely, guided rather by 
their distant destinations than by the slight irregularities 
of the ground, and forming junctions chosen quite arbi- 
trarily. Less numerous, and more carefully selected and 
laboriously prepared are the ways by which railway com- 
munication penetrates into the mountains. By preference 
it follows the long lines of valley that keep one direction, 



3 i8 CENTRAL EUROPE 

like those of the Rhone and Rhine, or the longitudinal 
valleys which in the Eastern Alps divide the central zones 
from the Limestone Alps on the north and south, or, 
again, like the curve of the Waag and the furrow of the 
Servian Morava. 

Of those railways which follow the same direction 
as the Eastern Alps and pass through the longitudinal 
valleys, the line from Vienna to Bregenz, which runs 
between Tyrol and the Vorarlberg and is important for 
the connection of the Austrian Alpine districts, has the 
hardest task, for it must pass beneath the mighty barrier 
of the Arlberg by means of a tunnel 6.4 miles long. The 
difficulties of construction were as great as on transversal 
lines crossing the Alps. 

It is not often possible to carry the line over an 
Alpine pass, and the boring of a tunnel is the plan gene- 
rally adopted. Even then it has to be decided whether a 
short tunnel shall be pushed through the upper part of 
the main ridge, and an open railway, struggling to 
defend itself against the snowstorms of winter, shall rise 
into the valley head, or whether the difficulty of this 
shall be evaded by the boring of a very long tunnel, so 
that the train may remain in the gentler climate of the 
lower levels. The second method has generally been 
preferred, notwithstanding the increased cost of a very 
long tunnel. The task was first undertaken by engineer- 
ing science when the railway was built which was to 
replace the old crossing of the Alps from Savoy to Pied- 
mont at the Mont Cenis, by a tunnel 7.6 miles long be- 
neath the Col de Frejus, fourteen miles farther to the 
west. The work, begun in 1857 by the kingdom of 
Sardinia alone, was completed, with the assistance of 
France, in 1871. 

This line of communication between Lyons and 
Turin is soon to be supplemented by a line of more value 
to Paris from Geneva to Milan. The piercing of the 
Mont Blanc group was for some time under consideration 
in connection with this scheme, but it was finally decided 
to carry a tunnel of 12.3 miles through the Simplon.. 



COMMUNICATIONS 



3*9 



The completion of this tunnel, the longest yet constructed, 
is expected to occupy eight years, and the engineers en- 
gaged upon it expect to find the temperature in the heart 
of the mountain rise to about 104 F. The great length 
of this tunnel will ensure favourable conditions of climate 




Fig. 39. — Loop Tunnels of St. Gothard. Approach to the Great Tunnel 
from the North. 

at the exits, which are placed as low as 2100 and 2200 
feet above the level of the sea. 

The most important previous tunnel was that which, 
since the year 1882, has connected Goschenen in the 
Reuss valley with Airolo on the Ticino. It is nine miles 
long, passes not only under the watershed of the St. 
Gothard ridge, but also under the upper part of the 




Fig. 39A. — Loop Tunnels of St. Gothard. Approach to the Great Tunnel 
from the South. 



Reuss valley, and forms the shortest way from Zurich to 
Milan, and so from the whole of West Germany to North 
Italy. This great work, which is of incomparable im- 
portance in the history of railway engineering, re- 
quired other difficult constructions in the neighbouring 
valleys, in particular spiral tunnels, which were obliged 



3 20 CENTRAL EUROPE 

to describe a wide curve in the heart of the mountains 
in order to overcome the difference in the level of their 
exits, which lie very near together, but above and below 
each other. The St. Gothard Railway revives the direct 
communication with Italy, and makes Genoa a port for 
West Germany. For these reasons Italy and Germany 
contributed largely to the cost of its construction, 
although the whole of the line belongs to the Swiss terri- 
tory. 

The direct line of the St. Gothard railway, running 
at right angles to the ridge of the Alps, will always give 
it an advantage over the Simplon railway, which runs 
in a diagonal line through the mountains, so as to 
join the longitudinal valley of the Rhone. It will have 
the same advantage over the schemes which at present 
are but talked of, that would take two lines obliquely 
across the Rhaetian Alps, the one continuing the Albula 
line, already building, through the Ofenberg to Mais, 
and the other from Partenkirchen to Chiavenna, through 
the Fern Pass and Maloggia. Tirol, since 1867, has 
been crossed by the Brenner line, which rises slowly 
along slipping slopes to the top of the pass. As the 
long-desired tunnel under the Tauern, to connect Salz- 
burg with Carinthia, is to-day only in construction, the 
outermost eastern wing of the Alps must for the pre- 
sent content itself with two railways, the Pontebba line 
(from Vienna to Venice) and the so-called Southern line 
(from Vienna to Trieste), both of which cross the principal 
watershed at low-lying saddles, and find their chief diffi- 
culties more to the north, the one in the gorge of the 
Enns, the so-called "Gesause," and the other at the 
Semmering. To the tunnel beneath the latter pass the 
line rises from Lower Austria with many much-admired 
contrivances of tunnels and viaducts. 

To the six railways which cross the Alps must be 
added those on the east coast of the Adriatic, which in- 
tersect the mountains from Agram to Fiume, and from 
Sarajevo to Mostar. In the case of the latter the tunnel 
under St. Ivan's pass presented fewer difficulties than 



COMMUNICATIONS 321 

did the passage through the terrible mountain gorges of 
the Narenta, which had never before been traversed by 
a road. The closeness of the Carpathian chains, too, 
gave to the bold lines connecting Buda-Pest with Oderberg, 
Tarnov, Przemsyl, Lemberg, Czernowitz and Bucharest a 
picturesqueness of surroundings that is often comparable 
with those of the mountain lines in the Alps. 

The fact that even the highest and most difficult 
mountains of Central Europe have railways running 
through them, while immediately beyond its borders 
in the Russian empire lie stretches of flat, easy, and 
singularly fruitful country where lines of railway are few 
and far apart, marks the sharpness with which the border- 
line on the east of Central Europe divides one civilisation 
from another. 

To compare the rapidity of different railway systems 
is not very easy. Only to stretches of approximately 
similar length can the same standards be applied ; hind- 
rances increase with distance. Nor must the delaying 
influence of foreign customs boundaries be forgotten ; 
in Central Europe, so politically broken up, these 
sometimes play a greater part than does the difference 
between flat and mountainous country. If we are 
to distinguish the maximum achievements of different 
countries, the first place must unquestionably be accorded 
to the "flying Scotsman," which does the 395 miles 
between London and Edinburgh in 465 minutes, thus 
attaining a speed of 51 miles an hour. Even on the 
much shorter runs from Berlin to Hamburg, from Berlin 
to Breslau, and from Vienna to Budapest the high 
speeds of 49.4, 44-0, and 43.2 miles are considerably 
below this. On longer distances, comparable with that 
between the British capitals, the speed per hour of the 
quickest trains on the German main lines is about 40 
miles, and in Austria about 38 miles. The trains of 
Central Europe, with these rates, are equal with those of 
France, and considerably ahead of those of other Con- 
tinental countries. Isochronic maps showing the dis- 
tances reached in every direction in equal times serve 



322 CENTRAL EUROPE 

very well to bring out for different centres of traffic the 
speed of their communications. That of Berlin gives an 
instructive example. 

A casual glance at the network of railway lines 
might give the impression that man had now become 
completely master of the surface of the earth, and that 
all parts of it were equally covered by the web of iron 




S- 'O fiowa 



Fig. 40. — Showing Lines of Equal Time Distance by Express Train from 
Berlin. (After Mary Krauske. ) 



threads. But as we make a closer inspection and dis- 
tinguish more clearly the value of the different lines, we 
soon perceive that the old main lines of direction marked 
out by nature as channels of communication have not lost 
their importance. It is evident that so long as man does 
not succeed in making the atmosphere serve as his 
medium of travel, so long as human intercourse has 
to cling to the surface of the earth, and to remain ex- 



COMMUNICATIONS 323 

posed to its friction, the map of communications will 
show geographical features, and will never cast off a 
certain dependence upon the conformation of the country. 
This is the more certain because the positions of the 
principal centres are not arbitrary, but mostly determined 
by the distribution of mountains over the land, and by 
the way in which the surface is divided. Such centres 
arise at the line of division between traffic by water and 
traffic by land, generally at the point inland which cannot 
be passed by vessels from the sea ; for example, on the 
steep coasts at the inner corner of the gulfs of Genoa, 
Trieste, and Fiume, or on the shallow banks of the 
lower parts of the great rivers. In the interior, foci of 
communication arise at points that form natural centres 
of countries and districts shut off from their surround- 
ings, either on every side, like Bohemia and Hungary, or 
at least on several sides, like the inlets of the lowland at 
Cologne, Leipzig, and Breslau. In addition to these, 
places at which great well-marked natural lines of com- 
munication cross are sure to become of special import- 
ance, and so are those at the entrance to narrow and 
busy passage ways. The most striking examples of this 
kind are Vienna and Frankfort- May ence, but Basle, 
Geneva, Graz, Belgrade, and Sofia are also instances. 
Spacious plains offer a larger choice of situation for such 
centres ; the choice of junctions so important as Berlin 
and Munich has been decided by historical developments 
that partly depended upon chance. A special group is 
formed by centres of population to which mineral trea- 
sures give an independent productive power of their own. 
As an artesian well bored in a desert will create an oasis, 
so the discovery of mineral treasures that long lay un- 
suspected under a tract of country will raise it in a few 
decades to life and activity, while wealth arises from un- 
numbered shafts to bless the inhabitants. All the great 
mining districts of Central Europe exhibit this spectacle, 
but in none is there a more striking example of the differ- 
ence between past and present than in Upper Silesia. In 



3 2 4 



CENTRAL EUROPE 



all these cases new centres arise which throw into the 
shade the old capitals of the neighbourhood, and the net 
of old trading roads disappears beneath the thicker web of 
modern communications. 

The electric lines, by which thought travels, are freer 
from local necessities. Central Europe is covered by a 
network of telegraph wires whose total length amounts to 
600,000 miles, and these have been further and usefully 
supplemented during the last few years by telephone lines 
to about two-thirds that length. The conversations carried 
along these telephonic channels are certainly not less 
than 1000 millions in a year, and have greatly assisted to 
accelerate and intensify commercial activity. Nothing 
can more effectually strengthen the power of great com- 
mercial and industrial centres than the rapidity with 
which a word uttered in Berlin can be heard in Copen- 
hagen, Bordeaux, or Budapest. It seems as if the human 
voice, the most direct expression of human will, were no 
longer subject to the bounds of space. 

The electric current gives to the whole civilised world 
of our day a common life of thought and emotion, as if 
the whole were but one single great organism. Even 
in the depths of the ocean the cables carry their messages 
from shore to shore. The British Isles are the centre of 
this trans-oceanic intercourse of thought. English enter- 
prise and capital have enriched most parts of the world 
with this new means of mutual comprehension. It is 
natural, however, that the various countries should seek 
gradually to emancipate themselves from a monopoly of 
this means of communication. Central Europe has al- 
ready made the first steps. Emden, the point from which 
the German cable starts for England, now has direct 
communication with Spain (Vigo), and with the United 
States. 

Note on Authorities. — No up-to-date geography of European traffic 
exists. 

Ample material lies scattered in different technical journals which 
seldom fall into the hands of a geographer. 



COMMUNICATIONS 325 

For an elucidation of Fig. 40, which is taken from the Festschrift des 
Geographischen Seminars der Universitdt Breslau, 1901, the reader may 
be referred to Francis Galton. He was the first to suggest the con- 
struction of " Isochronic Passage-charts" {Report of the $$th Meeting of 
the British Association, 18S1. Proceedings of the Royal Geographical 
Society, N.S., iii., 1881), and to draw them up for London. 



CHAPTER XX 

THE GEOGRAPHICAL CONDITIONS OF NATIONAL DEFENCE 

Central Europe is full, at the present day, of a rich and 
civilised life. It has blossomed in the sunshine of peace, 
and only under this star can go on prospering un- 
disturbed. But a love of peace on the part of the 
populations who inhabit it is not all that is necessary. 
Central Europe has been the battlefield of foreign peoples, 
the object and the prey of conquering neighbours, 
and can never forget that constant thought and con- 
stant labour are necessary in order to be ever ready 
in defence of its soil and its industry. There is no 
other part of Europe whose position, in case a fresh 
military period were to set the world in flames, would be 
so much threatened as would that of Central Europe. 
Who can dare to say that such dangers as were under- 
gone by Ferdinand the Second and Frederick the Second 
may not once more befall the powers of Central Europe ? 
Would they be strong enough if the cry " Enemies all 
around " were once more to compel them to lay their 
hands to the sword ? In answering this serious question 
geographical facts take a decisive part, and invite us to 
survey the means of defence along the frontiers. 

The western border of Central Europe is that which 
has undergone most variation during recent centuries, 
and has been the subject of most recent conflict. Here, 
even in the present day, is the most serious point of 
tension. In opposition to the French efforts at expan- 
sion, which at one time succeeded in setting back this 
frontier as far as the Baltic, the European Powers took 
measures, at the Congress of Vienna in 1 8 15, to protect 

Germany, which, owing to its divisions, was at that time 

326 



CONDITIONS OF NATIONAL DEFENCE 327 

weaker than it is now. Switzerland and the kingdom of 
the United Netherlands were created as buffer states. 
The neutrality secured to these was also promised in 
1832 to the newly formed kingdom of Belgium. The 
value of this protection on both flanks of the western 
frontier of Germany does not depend solely upon the 
security of international agreement and the doubtful 
readiness of the guarantors to protect this neutrality by 
force of arms. The neutral states themselves have shown, 
by the measures of self-defence which they have under- 
taken, that they are not disposed to let themselves be 
involved without resistance in the quarrels of their neigh- 
bours. It remains, however, somewhat uncertain whether 
they would have resolution enough to throw their defen- 
sive power quickly and emphatically into the balance 
against the invader of their neutrality. 

This is all the more doubtful, because the temptation 
not to respect neutral territory only arises when a strong 
militant power has already obtained considerable advan- 
tages and its superiority begins to be decisive. As long 
as both adversaries face each other in the fulness of their 
power, neither could venture, unpunished, to turn the 
flank of the other by crossing a narrow strip of neigh- 
bouring neutral country. But when the strength of the 
two parties begins to be unequal, the stronger may 
attempt by thus reaching across to hasten the final 
decision, and to protect itself against reverses. In any 
case, it is obvious that Germany could never have any- 
thing to gain by taking this course. Aix-la-Chapelle 
lies 264 miles distant from Paris and Metz 200 miles, 
and the way through the fortresses of the Sambre to 
Paris is not easier for a German attacking army than that 
by way of Verdun. Nor could a march through Switzer- 
land give any greater advantage to German troops. Why 
should they expose themselves to the difficulties and 
dangers of crossing the Swiss Rhine country and the 
Jura, when beyond these great obstacles they would still 
find themselves confronted by the same French fortifica- 
tions that directly touch German territory at the gate of 



328 



CENTRAL EUROPE 



Belfort ? Nor could an alliance with Italy ever lead 
Germany into the error of taking an army to be useless 
in the blind alley of Switzerland, shut in by the Jura. 
It would be madness to purchase a co-operation with 
Italy on Swiss' ground by an invasion of Switzerland, 
for an expedition north of the Alps would demand far 
greater powers than Italy could ever spare from her home 
defences. 




Fig. 41. — The Strongholds for the Defence of Central Europe 



With France the case is different. If the defensive 
power of Germany should be diminished along the Rhine, 
either by reverses or by the requirements of some war at 
a distance, France might hope, by advancing through 
Belgium, to enter Germany at the less protected northern 
end of the west frontier, to combine operations with its 
own navy, and in case of a simultaneous attack from 
Russia, to strike the severest blow at the enemy, who would 
lie between two hostile forces. Or if the German army 
of the Rhine were weakened and obliged to confine itself 
to defending the fortifications, the advance of a French 



CONDITIONS OF NATIONAL DEFENCE 329 

army through North Switzerland into the heart of South 
Germany might be even more tempting. These are the 
possibilities which the neutral states have seriously to 
keep in mind in the preparations for the defence of their 
neutrality. The defensive preparations of Switzerland, at 
any rate, seem to be guided by quite other views, and to 
propose a resistance in the inmost parts of the terri- 
tory. Immense sums are being expended upon the forts 
that surround the St. Gothard, and are turning the 
Urserenthal and the cross roads of Andermatt into a vast 
fortified camp. The entry to the great longitudinal inner 
Alpine valley is closed at the western end of Valais by the 
forts of Bourg St. Maurice, and the Rhine valley on the 
east is secured near Ragatz by the fortress of the Lucien- 
steig. The passes of the Jura, the defence of which is 
rendered more difficult by the fact that French territory 
extends to near the Lake of Geneva, are thought to be 
sufficiently closed by means of mines. A French attack- 
ing army, coming along the eastern foot of the Jura, 
could best be resisted, in the first place, at the strong 
position on the right bank of the Limmat and the Aar. 
The whole result, however, would depend upon the atti- 
tude taken by the Swiss military forces. If they were 
content to observe, events would sweep over their heads. 
The whole salvation of Switzerland would depend upon its 
making a firm stand for the complete inviolability of its 
territory. 

While that country has natural defences against the 
foreign invader in its mountains, its rapid and abundant 
rivers, and its broad lakes, the natural position of Belgium 
is not so secure. Its territory is intersected by the military 
road along the Sambre and the Meuse that has been used 
in so many wars. In any conflict between the two ad- 
joining powers, the shortest line between the objectives of 
the operations on both sides, Paris and Berlin, would pass 
along it, and would lead through rich highly cultivated 
country, offering relatively little natural hindrance. It is, 
therefore, of extreme importance that Belgium has not, 
like Switzerland, contented itself with preparing a refuge 



33 o CENTRAL EUROPE 

for its military power, as far as possible from the border, 
but has closed the line of the Meuse at the very frontier 
by the great fortified places of Liege and Namur, which 
bar the way against both Powers. The chief strength of 
Belgium would not, however, be stationed here, but would 
be collected in a great fortress lying aside from this 
line — Antwerp. This position offers the advantage of 
being protected on the south by the line of water formed 
by the union of the rivers Nethe, Rupel, and Scheldt. 
Beyond these rivers, the most important crossing-places 
of which are fortified, lies the circle, nine miles in diameter, 
of Antwerp's fourteen new forts, which have quite altered 
the character of an old fortified place that used to depend 
upon a ring of waters. The forts are especially strong 
towards the sea. It is obvious that the choice of this spot 
— which indeed is by nature well adapted for defence — 
has been in part decided by the hope of help from with- 
out. And indeed England's policy could never suffer any 
of the great Continental Powers to gain a firm foothold 
exactly opposite to the Thames, and, as Pitt expressed it, 
" to hold a pistol to England's breast." 

The example of this strong fortification of the environs 
of Antwerp may have contributed to make Holland pre- 
pare its national defences with so much insight and 
caution. As in former centuries, the strength of Hol- 
land still lies in the great expanse of country that can 
be flooded. This protection is only lost in very severe 
winters, such as that of 1794-95. The "new water-line" 
from the Zuyder Zee to the Lek, protected by Utrecht and 
a number of smaller fortifications, is, together with its 
continuation to the junction of the Meuse and Waal, 
Holland's principal line of defence towards the east ; 
while, on the south, rivers that widen into real arms of 
the sea forbid any hostile approach. Safely sheltered 
behind this protected belt of waters lies the principal 
fortress of the country, Amsterdam, surrounded by a wide 
ring of forts and a territory within its own power to 
inundate. The surrounding defences are completed by 
the fort of Ijmuiden at the entrance to the North Sea 



CONDITIONS OF NATIONAL DEFENCE 331 

Canal, and by the forts around Helder, which close not 
only the entrance to the North Holland Canal but also 
that to the Zuyder Zee, and so prevent the passage towards 
Amsterdam of hostile ships or of materials for a siege. 

The peaceful dispositions and the good state of defence 
of its three neighbours on the west are of great import- 
ance to Germany in the task of defending its 150 miles 
of frontier against France. The acquisitions of the last 
great war, which restored the losses of centuries, altered 
the conditions of national defence fundamentally and to 
the advantage of Germany. Whereas the former frontier 
used to be the Rhine, which served to conceal the military 
preparations of France, and whereas the fortress of Strass- 
burg used to be a direct menace to the safety of South 
Germany, the river, from Basle to the frontier of Holland, 
is now once more entirely in the hands of the Germans. 
If there w T ere danger of war, the line of the Rhine would 
cover the strategic advance of the German forces. Be- 
tween Basle and Mayence the river is crossed upon German 
territory by eleven railway bridges and sixteen pontoon 
bridges. Beyond the river, Upper Alsace is covered by 
the broad and wooded mountains of the Vosges ; and 
where these mountains end, and the Saar basin is bor- 
dered by low hills, eight lines of railway run from the 
reach of the Rhine between Strassburg and Cologne 
towards the westward projection of the frontier of 
Lorraine. The newly acquired line of the Moselle is 
here protected by the mighty fortress of Metz, the new 
forts of which form a circle round the town five miles in 
diameter, and more to the north, close to the frontier 
of Luxemburg, by Diedenhofen. It would be between 
Metz and the northern end of the Vosges, as a glance at 
the railway map will show us, in front of the Saar and 
behind the Seille, that the main defending force of Ger- 
many would probably collect. Military writers consider 
the fields round Luneville and Nancy as the probable 
scene of the first decisive action in any future war. Its 
result would decide whether an advance upon the first 
French line of defence, supported by the Upper Moselle 



332 CENTRAL EUROPE 

and Meuse and by the great fortresses of Epinal, Toul, 
and Verdun, were possible for the German army, or 
whether the French could open their advance upon 
the Rhine towards the great places of Strassburg and 
Mayence. 

If the neutrality of Belgium were to be violated by 
France, Cologne would become the central point of 
defence, and in the course of the last twenty or thirty 
years nothing has been spared to bring its fortifications 
into the best and most modern condition ; the importance 
of Wesel, too, has not been forgotten. If an advance 
should be made through the Gate of Belfort and North 
Switzerland towards the interior of South Germany, the 
French would indeed find, if they avoided the fortified 
places of Breisach and Istein, that the whole reach of the 
Rhine which lies between Germany and Switzerland, from 
Basle up to Constance, is unprotected ; but the modernised 
fortresses of Ulm and Ingolstadt would oppose a barrier, 
and even under great difficulties would secure time for 
the German military leaders to collect sufficient forces on 
the Danube, or to carry out serious operations against the 
enemy's communications. 

Any attack upon the western frontier of Germany 
would probably, in the present preponderance of the 
French navy, be accompanied by a threatening of the 
German coasts. The experiences of the last war should 
not lead to the underestimation of this danger. In the North 
Sea, the shallows impede the approach of hostile vessels. 
Nothing, however, has been left undone in the defences 
of the naval station of Wilhelmshaven, and of the mouths 
of the rivers Elbe and Weser. The acquisition of the 
Island of Heligoland is of ambiguous value. While this 
little rocky islet remained in the hands of England, Ger- 
many might at any time have had the annoyance of seeing 
a hostile fleet collect there, but now that it is protected 
by German batteries it makes an outlying point open to 
the first attack. The mouth of the Elbe has become 
a more important place since it received the North Sea 
and Baltic Canal. The two extremities of the canal are 



CONDITIONS OF NATIONAL DEFENCE 333 

not much exposed to danger ; the more easterly lies 
in the middle of Kiel Harbour, and is covered by- 
strong fortifications at its entrance. To protect its 
course through Holstein, if it were threatened by a 
force that had landed, say, in Jutland, would be more 
difficult. 

The coasts of the Baltic, owing to their extent, are 
inconvenient to fortify, and are not so naturally difficult 
of approach as the shallows of the North Sea. The 
best protection here consists in a line of railway running 
along the coast, and ready to carry help to any point 
threatened. The important commercial inlets, however, 
are fortified, or else ready to be closed by torpedoes 
in case of war. Fortunately the large towns lie far 
back, out of danger of bombardment, a good way up 
the mouths of rivers, and in some cases at the end of 
broad haffs. Two of them, Dantzig and Konigsberg, are 
already among the strongest defensive positions along the 
eastern frontier. 

If France were to conspire with the giant Empire of 
the east for the destruction of the German Empire, it 
would help to bring about its own ruin and the slavery 
of its future generations. The unlimited growth of the 
Russian Empire, and the disturbance of the balance of 
power in the interior of Europe to the advantage of 
Russia, which already contains more than a quarter of 
all the inhabitants of the Continent, do undoubtedly con- 
stitute a danger to the whole Germanic, and also to the 
whole Latin world. The danger is but little lessened by 
the consideration that there are no grave interests in 
dispute between Russia and Germany. While it is certain 
that Germany will never covet a square mile of Russian 
soil, no one can answer for it that the Russian Colossus, 
in its unceasing expansion, may not some 1 day attempt 
once more to push its western frontier forward. No 
natural barriers, difficult to cross, protect Germany on 
the east. Only the power of the German people to 
defend itself can protect this boundary. 

The task is rendered more difficult by the length 



334 CENTRAL EUROPE 

and its retreating curve to the westward. The frontier 
measures 750 miles from Memel to the Three-Emperors 
Corner at Myslowitz, and while the direct line from the 
eastern ends of East Prussia and Silesia passes through 
Warsaw, the Russian territory on the Middle Warta 
pushes so far westward that Berlin stands at a distance 
of only 180 miles from the frontier. This wedge of 
Poland points menacingly towards the German capital, 
and leaves the military strength of Russia free to choose 
upon what part of the long frontier line it will direct the 
full force of its onset. East Prussia, surrounded on the 
south, east, and north by Russian territory, exposed on 
the north-west to the attack of the Russian Baltic fleet, 
is connected with the main body of the Empire only by 
a length of 75 miles and lies in the greatest danger. The 
first effort of any Russian attack would be to paralyse 
this wing of the Prussian eagle. If the armies of 
Germany were compelled to act on the defensive here, 
they would find their task lightened only along the 
southern border, where there are woods and the tangled 
waters of Masuria. Between the long lakes with their 
many arms, the roads have to go across narrow passages 
which would be easy to defend, even if the closing of 
them had not been prepared in time of peace, by building 
little forts like Fort Boyen at Lotzen. For great hostile 
undertakings this tract of country is in any case less 
suitable. The natural lines of Russian advance are the 
broad valleys of the Pregel and the Vistula. The Russian 
railway system has prepared, in the junctions of Vilna 
and Warsaw, points of departure for both these lines of 
attack. The fortifications of Kovno, at the crossing of the 
Niemen, form a base from which an army which was not 
opposed by an equal force would find the way open 
through the Pregel district as far as Konigsberg. A wide 
ring of forts has of late years made this place into a 
fortress of the first rank, which cannot be fully sur- 
rounded so long as the Frische Haff with its fortified 
entrance, the Pillauer Deep, are not in the enemy's hands. 
With Konigsberg as a base, a lesser Prussian army might 



CONDITIONS OF NATIONAL DEFENCE 335 

maintain its footing upon the island of the coast between 
the Haffs and the mouths of the Pregel, whose branches 
fall into them ; or, stationed behind the Deime and the 
Alle, such an army could protect all East Prussia. Its 
situation would only be seriously endangered if a Russian 
army from the Vistula were to gain a decisive success, 
and to cut East Prussia's communications on the west. 
The strong fortifications on the line of the Vistula have 
been erected to meet this danger. Thorn, in particular, 
has a large ring of detached forts commanding both 
banks of the river, and able with an energetic and active 
garrison to extend their influence north-eastward, as far 
as the Prussian lake country, and south-westward as far as 
the lakes of the Upper Netze. Only 30 miles further to 
the north lies Graudenz at the head of an important 
bridge, which has recently been strongly fortified, and 
lies half-way between Thorn and the delta of the Vistula. 
The area of the delta ready for inundation strengthens 
the position of Dantzig, which the forts on the western 
hills and at the mouths of the river have made into a 
spot most capable of being defended. It is connected 
with Konigsberg on one side by the Frische Haff. 

With the great military strength which Russia has at 
command, it would undoubtedly be possible that, simul- 
taneously with an invasion along the Pregel and Vistula, 
an advance should be attempted towards Berlin. The 
advancing army on the left bank of the Vistula would be 
threatened on the flank by Thorn, and could not go on 
until it had completely invested this fortress ; but if it did 
succeed in reaching the eastern border of the province of 
Posen, it would come into a country much cut up by long 
lakes running from north to south and offering many 
positions favourable to the defence. Beyond lies the reach 
of the Warta that runs northward, and upon it the strong 
fortress of Posen. Here the lines of communication from 
all the eastern portions of the Empire converge. An in- 
terruption of these communications, by the surrounding 
of Posen, would be a heavy blow which the German 
military leaders would have to use every exertion to pre- 



336 CENTRAL EUROPE 

vent. The wide ring of forts and the modern methods of 
construction give to Posen a great power of resistance to 
a siege, the materials for which would have to be brought 
from a great distance and by very difficult roads. Taken 
together, Konigsberg, Dantzig, Thorn, and Posen form a 
ring of fortresses that enclose a natural division of territory 
and greatly enhance its powers of defence. The line of 
the Oder is of but secondary importance. Since the 
razing of the defences of Stettin, it has possessed but 
one strong fortress, Custrin, which has outlying forts, and 
stands at the embouchure of the Warta in a considerable 
area of easily flooded country. South of the Obra Bruch, 
which connects the Warta and the Oder, and bounds the 
sphere of influence belonging to the fortress of Posen, 
lies but one fortified place, at the head of a bridge, 
Glogau. Silesia is less important for the purpose of 
protecting the eastern frontier. It does not lie in the 
natural line of a Russian advance, and is in some degree 
defended by the far projection eastward of the Austrian 
Empire. 

The whole conditions of national defence along this 
eastern frontier, with its unfavourable peculiarities, suggest 
that this border cannot be satisfactorily held on the 
defensive, and that serious injury can only be averted 
by a vigorous offensive. In the eastern provinces where 
no river runs, like the Rhine, parallel with the frontier, 
making a basis of defence, the place of some such basis 
would have to be supplied artificially by railway lines 
running along the border. The carefully laid out system 
of communications has everywhere created two, and some- 
times for long distances three, independent lines of railway 
running parallel with the frontier, and these — if satis- 
factorily secured against destructive attacks by bodies of 
Russian cavalry — would render possible a rapid displace- 
ment of troops. They can, however, only be so guarded 
by a considerable advance of German troops. As the 
different size of the areas to be covered and the differences 
in railway development in the two empires would un- 
doubtedly assure to the Germans the advantage of being 



CONDITIONS OF NATIONAL DEFENCE 337 

more quickly ready for battle, it is obvious that Russia 
must reckon, in case of war, upon taking up at first a 
purely defensive attitude. She has prepared for it by 
constructing the square of Polish fortresses — Novo 
Georgiewsk, Ivangorod, Brest-Litewski, and Goniondz — ■ 
which will enable her to collect her forces behind the 
great river frontage of the Bobr, Narew, Bug, and 
Vistula, and there to await with confidence the approach 
of any attack. Warsaw has also been made into a 
stronghold. 

This conception of the position depends upon the 
paucity of railways, economically so much required in the 
great district on the left bank of the Vistula. Russia 
trusts for protection, even in this first stage of a war, to 
her superfluity of space, and to that " fifth element " which 
Napoleon discovered with terror — the unfathomable mud 
of the roadway, which paralyses the most active strategy 
and tires the most valorous soldiers. The offensive side 
of national defence therefore presents serious difficulties 
to Germany. But the rich cultivation and increased 
population of Poland have in the course of a century 
changed the character of the battlefields, and deprived 
Russia of the exceptional position which she appeared to 
occupy after the experiences of Napoleon. The Russian 
Empire cannot be regarded as so invulnerable and so 
unapproachable for hostile troops at the present day as it 
was in 18 12. The method of defence which was possible 
then cannot be repeated. 

Calm and expert judges are inclined not to over- 
estimate the danger of a war with Russia. Much would 
of course depend upon whether Germany had to bear 
all the weight of it alone, or whether it could reckon on 
the aid of its present ally, Austria-Hungary. The position 
of that power in regard to Russia is essentially different. 
The greater part of the Empire is sheltered by the Car- 
pathians. Only Silesia, Galicia, and the Bukovina stretch 
down into the plain of Eastern Europe, and absolutely 
demand an armed defence against their great neighbour. 



338 CENTRAL EUROPE 

Three railways lead from Moravia and five from Hungary 
into the district where the Oder rises, and into the basins 
of the Vistula and Dniester. Of these railways, six debouch 
into the valleys of the Vistula and San, behind which 
the principal defensive force would have to assemble, 
supported by the two great fortresses of Cracow and 
Przemysl, which are connected by two independent lines. 
Use could also be made of the lines in the valleys 
of the Waag and the Hernad, deep in the mountains, if 
troops had to be carried from one side to the other. 
The choice of two points of concentration at only 150 
miles apart bears witness clearly enough to the con- 
viction that a strip of land so long, and at the ends so 
narrow, as the outer border of the Carpathians from 
Teschen to Czernowitz (400 miles) can only be defended 
by forces held well together, and ready to take the offen- 
sive. The attraction of the enemy by a strong army 
serves better than a dispersion of forces to secure districts 
that lie at a distance. While the army of Cracow in a 
well-chosen position would face towards the Polish seat 
of war, and at the same time be ready, in case of an 
alliance, for co-operation with the German forces, the army 
of Przemysl and Lemberg would be required to advance 
towards Volhynia and Little Russia. In consequence 
of the division of the country into a northern and a 
southern field of operations, separated by the great marshy 
district of the Bug and the Pripet, this army would choose 
an independent aim, namely, Kiev. 

While the great Powers of Central Europe, if com- 
pelled to take up arms in defence of their eastern frontier, 
would obviously try to carry the decisive action into the 
enemy's country, Roumania, weaker in regard to Russia, 
both owing to its position and to the conformation of its 
frontier, could only hope to protect itself by a resolutely 
defensive attitude ; its task would be to find means of 
holding in check the overwhelming power of its neighbour 
until help came. The line of the Sereth suggested the 
construction of fortifications here, the principal centres 



CONDITIONS OF NATIONAL DEFENCE 339 

being Focsani, Namalossa, and Galatz. The fortification 
of the capital, Bucharest, is on an equally large scale. The 
great sacrifices which Roumania has made for the defence 
of its independent political position show that it under- 
stands the lessons of the near past, and that it is becoming 
a valuable pillar of the existing group of Central European 
states. 

It is not possible to speak with the same certainty of 
Bulgaria and Servia, which are turning their measures of de- 
fence against each other. It is clear that not only the new 
fortifications of Slivnitsa and Belogradzik near the frontier, 
but also the protection of Sofia by the four forts now in 
course of construction, are the result of the Servian attack 
in the year 1885. The old square of fortresses in Eastern 
Bulgaria between the Danube and the Balkan, which 
played so famous a part in the world's history (Rust- 
chuk, Silistria, Shumla, and Varna), would appear to have 
no future importance. The significance of Widdin, too, 
sank with the fall of the empire whose northern border 
it had so long protected. 

On the other hand, the political and military importance 
of Bosnia and Herzegovina have increased since Austria- 
Hungary took its first step this way on the road towards 
Salonica. That the road may be. stubbornly disputed the 
Government is perfectly aware. Even the retention of 
what has been already gained is opposed by the Great 
Servian agitation originating in Montenegro. A conflict 
between Austria and Russia would fan it into open insur- 
rection in Herzegovina. The Austrians are preparing for 
all eventualities. Besides numerous little forts and block- 
houses, they have built three great fortresses with detached 
forts at Sarayevo, Mostar, and Trebinye, and have facilitated 
the dominion of the country by an admirable development 
of the road system. In particular, they have surrounded 
with well-chosen fortified posts Montenegro, the hotbed 
of disturbances, which has long felt as an oppressive chain 
the strong defences at the Bocche di Cattaro. Time 
has not softened the mutual antagonism. The moment 
23 



34 o CENTRAL EUROPE 

of outbreak is awaited. The nature of the country, 
unusually favourable to guerilla warfare and to the pre- 
servation of bands of insurgents, would make any contest 
for supremacy long and trying. None of the rose-coloured 
reports that are spread, and that in a measure fit Bosnia, 
can charm away this danger that threatens Herzegovina. 
Austria here holds a wolf by the ears. 

In such circumstances — and they exist in Dalmatia 
too and darken many a corner of it — it becomes very 
important to Austria that her fleet should rule the Adriatic. 
Its principal stations are at Cattaro, the island of Lissa, 
and the fine military harbour of Pola in Istria. 

Along the Alpine frontier the old tension between 
Austria and Italy has ostensibly died down since the exist- 
ence of the Triple Alliance ; but the openly expressed 
desire of the Italians to possess the Trentino keeps awake 
the watchfulness of Austria. 

Although preparations are thus made for defence on 
the four faces of Central Europe and are continually 
perfected to meet the requirements of the times, we 
may, on the other hand, perceive in its interior a striking 
diminution of the friction between one state and another 
which was formerly so marked a defect. A general view 
of the defensive measures of Central Europe in the 
present day brings out, as at no previous time, the essen- 
tial unity of this great civilised region. Among all the 
alliances of our day, that between the two great Central 
European Powers is the most natural and has the 
strongest internal guarantees of permanence. If these 
two continue to hold together, not only will their smaller 
western neighbours be enabled, under the protection 
of their swords, still to enjoy prosperity and security, 
but the unruly peoples between the Adriatic and Black 
Seas will also learn to value and enjoy the blessings of 
peaceful industry. Central Europe has been the battle- 
field of all nations long enough to resist a recurrence 
of such sufferings with all its might and by a united 
movement of its millions of trained soldiers. May the 



CONDITIONS OF NATIONAL DEFENCE 341 

great monument on the battlefield of Leipzig, where the 
criminal effort to enslave a whole continent was defeated, 
not by military skill, but by the elemental power of 
liberty-loving nations, remain the last memento of the 
political errors of previous centuries, a warning to all 
ambitious tyrants in the future, and an admonition to the 
peoples of Central Europe to remain united, to keep peace, 
and to command peace. 



INDEX 



Aar River, 17, 22 
Abbazia, 1 1 3 
Achensee, Lake, 40 
Adamello group, 35, 2,7 
Adda River, 17, 35 
Adersbach, yy 
Adige River, 17, 35, 37, 38 
Adrianople, 65 

Adriatic Sea, 7, 116, 211, 228, 313 ; 
coast, rainfall, 121 ; watershed, 

37 

Adula, glaciers of, 2,3 

JEgean Sea, rivers of, 65 

Aestii, the, 125, 134 

Aggtelek, cavern of, 170 

Agram, 20, 225, 227 

Agriculture, 170, 199 

Aiguilles, the, 49 

Aix-la-Chapelle, 144, 261, 327 

Albanians, the, 139 

Albula River, 33 

Alcoholic drinks, 179 

Alemanni, the (see Swabians) 

Alemannic dialect, 132 

Aletsch Glacier, 2 1 

Alexander of Battenberg, 155 

Alfold (see Hungarian Plain) 

Alle River, 335 

Aller River, 92, 103, 277 

Alnmouth, no 

Alpine Foreland, 18, 41 ; glacier 
system, 21 ; landscape, 19 

Alps, 2, 3, 13, 16, 117; Bernese, 
26 ; Cottian, 26 ; Dinaric, 231 ; 
Eastern, 17, 34, 130, 208 ; Ger- 
man foreland of, 42 ; Gneissic, 
18 ; Graian, 26 ; Helvetian, 28 ; 
Limestone, 18, 26 ; Maritime, 
26 ; Northern, 39 ; Oetzthal, 35 : 
Pennine, 26 ; pre-, 18 ; rainfall of, 
22; Rhaetian, 34; Western, 11, 

19 
Alsace, 146, 242, 250 
Alsen, 93 



Alster River, 292 

Alt River, 48, 50 

Altena, 260 

Altenberg, 306 

Altmark, the, 276 

Altmiihl River, 127, 316 

Altona, 277, 294 

Altvater Gebirge, 78 

America, 292 ; North, 292, 293 

Ammersee, Lake, 41 

Ampezzo, 37 

Amselfeld, 64, 57; battle of, 153, 

154 
Amster River, 302 
Amsterdam, 302, 303 
Andermatt, 31, 329 
Andree, R., 202 
Anglo-Saxon dialect, 133 
Angot, 123 
Aniline dye, 195 
Annaberg, J2, 2 7 I 
Antivari, 153, 232 
Antwerp, 1, in, 148,299, 303, 304, 

309, 310, 330 ; port of, no 
Appenzell, 204 
Aquileia, 210 
Aquincum, 224 
Arad, 223 

Aranyosh River, 222 
Arbe, 60 

Arber, Mount, 76 
Arcona, 96 
Ardennes, the, 3, 15, 79, 86, 305 ; 

Mountains of, 85 
Aremberg Moor, 105 
Argentina, 175 
Argentoratum, 249 
Aristotle, 214 
Arlberg Pass, 17 
Arnheim, 301 
Arpads, the, 224 
Arva, Valley of, 50 
Asia Minor, 198 
Atlantic Ocean, 7, 310 



344 



INDEX 



Attila, 223 

Augsburg, 81, 198, 243, 246 

Augusta Vindelicorum, 243 

" Ausgleich," the, 151 

Aussee, 207 

Austria, 7, 13, 145 ; Alpine 
countries of, 207 ; Lower, 189 ; 
plain of Lower, 38 ; Upper, 
39 ; Sudetic and Carpathian 
countries of, 214 ; Trauna dis- 
trict of Upper, 40 

Austrian Lloyd Company, 229 

Austro- Hungary, waterways of, 314 

Auvergne, 85 

Avars, the, 134, 140 

Aztecs, the, 171 

Babelsberg, Castle of, 283 

Babia Gora, 47 

Baden, 28, 113 ; Grand Duchy of, 

242 
Bajuvari, the, 124, 129 
Bakonyan Forest, 51, 225 
Balaton, Lake, 56 
Baldegg, Lake, 29 
Bale, J., 46 

Balkan Mountains, 2, 65, 66 
Balta, Islands of, 70 
Baltic Islands, 90 ; ridge, 92, 98 ; 

Sea, 1, 7, 78, 92, 93, 97, 114, 198, 

211, 288, 289, 313 ; fisheries of, 

290 
Baltic and North Sea Canal, 7 
Bamberg, 81, 247 
Banat, the, 52, 65 
Bardowik, 291 
Barley, 170 
Barmen, 260 
Bartsch River, 101, 278 
Baruth Valley, 101 
Basle, 82, 204, 205, 250 
Basses Alpes, 25 
Bastarni, the, 125 
Bautzen, 135, 272 

Bavaria, 13, 242 ; high plain of, 41 
Bavarian Allgau, 207 ; Forest, 43, 

76 ; Vogtland, 242 
Bavarians, the, 134, 241 
Baziash, 55 
Beech tree, 164 
Beer, 177, 180 
Beet, 176 

Belfort, 328 ; gate of, 332 
Belgian International traffic, mam 

centre of, no 



Belgium, 299, 305, 327 ; defences 

of, 329 ; imports and exports of, 

200 ; mercantile marine of, 310 ; 

waterways of, 314 
Belgrade, 154, 226, 234 ; and Salo- 

nica railway, 64 
Belle Donne Mountains, 26 
Belluno, 20 
Belogradzik, 339 
Berchtesgaden, 207 
Bergamo, 36 
Berghaus, 123 
" Bergstrasse," 83 
Berlin, 100, 101, 277, 278, 280, 288, 

315, 324 ; Congress of, 55, 155 ; 

-Kolln, 281 ; lines of equal time 

distance by express train from, 

322 ; University of, 282 
Berne, 206 
Bernese Oberland, 31, 206; glaciers 

of, 21 
Bernina, 35 

Beskid Mountains, 47, 73 
Bessarabia, 13 
Beveland, 309 
Bex, 204 
Biebrich, 254 
Biel, Lake, 30 

Biela River, 75, 76 ; Valley, 215 
Bielefeld, 263 
Bille River, 292 
Billwiller, 8 

Bingen, 84, 85, 143, 241 
Birnbaum, 137 
Bisamberg, 44 
Bittner, A., 71 
Blaavanshook, no 
Black Elster River, 257 ; Valley of, 

103 
Black Forest, n, 82, 163, 241, 

248 ; railway, 251 
Black Sea, 1, 7, 78, 116, 210, 238 
Blankanese, 291 
Blink, H., 312 
Bobr River, 3, 100, 337 
Bocche di Cattaro, the, 61, 120,339 
Bochnia, 151 
Bochum, 260 
Bogumilo, the, 233 
Bohemia, 3, 11, 12, 14, 15, 74, 130, 

214 ; basin of, 116 
Bohemian Forest, 43, 75 
Bohm, A., 46 
Bohmer Wald, 162 
Bojana River, 112 



INDEX 



345 



Boji, the, 124 

Bonn, 85, 258 

Bora, the, 117, 228, 229 

Bosnia, 62, 63, 152, 232, 233, 339 

Bosnian railway, 64 

Bourg St. Maurice, fort of, 329 

Bourtanger Moor, 105, 297 

Boyana River, 57, 232 

Boyars, 155 

Boyen, Fort, 334 

Bozen, 37, 209 

Braakman River, 308 

Brabant, 299, 307 ; North, 304 

Brahe River, 101, 278 

Braila, 70, 174, 238 

Brandenburg, 277, 280 ; electorate 
of, 145 ; Mark of, 101, 130, 277 

Brandy, 180 

Brazil, 230, 292 

Breisach, 332 

Breite Vierzehn depths, no 

Bremen, in, 295 ; shipping of, 296 

Bremerhaven, 295 

Brenner, the, 24, 35, 209 

Brescia, 37 

Breslau, 78, 90, 274, 277 

Brest-Litewski, 337 

Brigetio, 211, 224 

British Isles, 4, 324; merchant 
service, 238 

Brittany, n 

Brixen, 209 

Brocken, the, 87 

Brody, 219 

Bromberg, 278 ; Canal, 101 

Bruckner, Edward, 46 

Bruges, 307, 308 

Briinn, 216 

Brunnen, 28 

Brunig railway, 28 

Brunsbiittel, 314 

Brunswick, 87, 264 

Brussels, 307 

Bucharest, 1 16, 339 

Biickeberg, the, 263 

Buckwheat, 170 

Bucsecs, 48 

Budapest, 174, 225 ; Boring be- 
neath, 51 

Budweis, 75, 215 

Bug River, 72, 137, 218, 337, 338 

Bukowina, the, 13, 129, 217, 238 

Bulgaria, 3, 155, 235, 339 ; primitive 
mountains and main valleys of, 
63 



Bulgarian Tableland, 66 
Bulgarians, the, 139, 154 
Bundenerthal, 31 
Burgas, 3, 67 ; Bay of, 68, 236 
Burgundy, Dukes of, 298, 307 
Burgundy, Gate of, 82, 249 
Butjadingen, 107 
Byelashnitsa Mountain, 63 
Byzantine Empire, 139 
Byzantium, 237 
Bzura River, 101 

Cannstadt, 246 

Carinthia, 11, 38, 207 

Carlsbad, Springs of, 182 

Carlsruhe, 250, 251 

Carniola, 38, 207 ; Mountains of, 

22 
Carnuntum, 211, 224 
Carpathians, 2, 13, 47, 49, 50, 90, 

102, 117, 221, 337 
Cassel, 262 
Cattaro, 231, 340 
Cattle, 166, 168 
Caucasus, 66 
Cereals, 170 
Cettinje, 120 
Cevennes Mountains, n 
Chambery, 26 
Chamouni, 32 
Charlemagne, 130, 143, 261, 265, 

291, 316 
Charleroi, 86, 306 
Charles the Bold, 144, 299 ; the 

First, 157 ; the Fifth, 144, 299, 

310 ; the Sixth, 230 
Charlottenburg, 277, 282 ; technical 

college at, 282 
Chateau Salins, 255 
Chatti, the, 261 
Chavanne, J., 202 
Cheese, 168 
Chemical works, 195 
Chemnitz, 77, 270, 271 
Cherso, 60 
Cherusci, the, 261 
Chiers, Valley of, 86 
China, 230 
Christ, H., 46 
Chur, 23, 31, 33, 206 
Cimbri, the, 125 
Cimbrian Peninsula, 99 
Cisleithania, 151 
Coal, 187, 194, 196 
Coblentz, 85, 162, 258 



346 



INDEX 



Cologne, 114, 174, 258, 313, 332; 

lowland bay of, 85 
Como, Lake, 19 
Congo State, 310 
Constance, 205, 242 ; Lake of, 19, 

30, 158, 242 
Constantine, 236 
Constantinople, 212 
Constanza, 237 
Copenhagen, 288, 289, 314 
Copper, 185, 198, 207 
Cosmas, 214 
Cottbus, 277 
Cotton, 199 
Courland, 98 
Cracow, 217, 218, 338 ; Republic of, 

158 
Credner, Rudolph, 1 1 1 
Crete^d, 259 
Crimea, the, 66 
Crimmitschau, 271 
Croats, the, 139 
Crotia, 152, 220, 228 
Csik Basin, 48 
Csikoshs, the, 166 
Cuba, 176 

Curische Haff, the, 284 
Customs Union, 146, 148, 292, 293 
Ciistrin, 100 ; Fortress of, 336 
Cuxhaven, 107, 294 
Cvijic, J., 71 
Czechs, 136 
Czenstochow, J3 
Czerna Hora, the, 48, 69 
Czernagora, 153 
Czernavoda, 237 
Czernowitz, 219 

Dachan, Bog of, 41 

Dachstein, Lake, 40 

Dacia, 128 

Dalmatia, 62, 116, 120, 152, 228, 

340 ; fisheries of, 231 
Dalmatian Shore, 7 ; Archipelago, 

61 
Danes, the, 129 ; of Schleswig- 

Holstein, 134 
Dantzig, 93, 218, 283, 285, 333, 

336.; Gulf of, 95, 285 
Danube River, 3, 7, 12, 34, 54, 66, 

122, 123, 129, 227, 245, 316; 

Canal, 213 ; and Main Canal, 

316 ; and Oder Canal, 316 ; 

basin of, 48 ; entry into Jura, 

44 ; German, 41 ; Hungarian, 



47, 52 ; lower, 69, 313 ; middle 
lowland of, 140; mountain course 

of, 55 

Darmstadt, 250, 253 

Davis, W. M, 15 

Davos Landwater, 34 

Dead Mountain, 40 

Debes, 9 

Deime River. 98, 335 

Deister, the, 263 ; ridge, 88 

Deli Orman, 68 

Demeter, 180 

Demir Kapu, 67 

Dender River, 308 

Denmark, 146 

Dent du Midi, 32 

Dent de Morcles, 32 

Deveny, Gap of, 45, 47 

Dialects, High German, Low 
German, Lower Saxon, Frisian, 
Lower Franconian, Anglo- 
Saxon, Dutch, Flemish, 133 j 
Alemannic, 132 

Diedenhofen, 331 

Diener, C, 46 

Diluvial Period, 101 

Diocletian, 231 

Dirschau, 285 

Ditmarsh, 107 

Dniester River, 47, 72, 129, 218 

Dobratsh River, 138 

Dobruja, the, 68 ; Steppes of, 238 

Dogger Bank, in, 311 

"Dolines," 58 

Dollart, the, 108, 296 ; foundation 
of, 107 

Dolomites, 48 

Donau-Moos, 44 

Donau-Ried, 44 

Donauworth, 44 

Doras, the, 36 

Dordrecht, 109 

Dortmund, 85, 259, 260, 315 ; and 
Ems Canal, 259 

Doubs River, 27 

Dover, Straits of, 304 

Drac, Valley of, 17 

Drave River, 38, 56, 226 ; Valley, 

19, 23 
Dresden, 272 
Drewenz River, 99 
Drin River, 57 
Droemling River, 277 
Drohobycz, 219 
Dromling, the, 103 



INDEX 



347 



Drude, 202 
Duisburg, 90, 259 
Dulcigno, 153, 232 
Diimmer, Lake, 104 
Dunkerque, 2 
Durance, Valley of, 22 
Durlach, 251 
Diisseldorf, 259, 260 
Dutch language, 133 

EBENSEE, 207 

Eberswalde Valley, 100 

Eger River, 75, 76 ; Valley, 215 

Egge Mountain, 88 

Egli, J. J, 8 

Eichsfeld, 268 

Eider, Valley of, 98 

Eiderstedt Peninsula, dunes of, 

106 
Eifel, the, 261 
Eifel, plains of, 85 ; volcanoes of, 

85 
Eisack, 38 ; Valley, 209 
Eisenerz, 207 ; Mountain, 187 
Ekernforde, Valley of, 98 
Elbe River, 4, 15, 75, 92, 103, 122, 

256, 265, 291, 332 ; estuary of, 

107 ; valley of, 100 ; and Trave 

Canal, 289 
Elberfeld, 260 
Elbing, 99, 285, 315 
Elector, the Great, 281 
Electors Palatine, Castle of, 253 
Elfert, 123 

Elster River, 267 ; basin, 267 
Emden, 296, 324 
Emineh, Cape, 68 
Emmerich, 301 
Ems, 258 ; River, 88, 296 
Emscher River, 259 
Engadine, the, 17, 22, 34 
Engelbrecht, 177, 178, 202 
England, 201, 292 
English Channel, 314 
Enns, 38, 43 ; River, 210 
Epinal, Fortress of, 332 
Erding, Bog of, 41 
Erfurt, 80, 269 
Erzegebirge, 14, 7S> : 94, 215, 266, 

271 ; Saxon, 76 
Essen, 195, 260 
Europe, Central, advance of Romans 

into, 126; animal and vegetable 

life of, 161 ; climate of, 112; 

human industry of, 191 ; eastern 



boundary of, 1 ; industrial dis- 
tricts of, 194 ; mountains of, 10;. 
block mountains and tablelands 
of, 72 ; peoples of, 124 ; railway 
systems of, 317 ; rainfall of, 119; 
Roman boundaries in, 128 ; sky 
of, 118 ; states of, 143 ; strong- 
holds for defence of. 328 ; tele- 
graphic and telephonic systems,, 
324 ; waterways of, 315 
Eutin, Lake, 99 

Feldberg, the, 248 

Ferdinand the Second, 326 

Fichtel Gebirge, 76 

Finland, 90 

Finstermung, 35 

Fischer, Theobald, 8 

Fiume, 7, 225, 228, 230 

Flaming, 103 

Flanders, 299 ; dunes of, 106 

Flax, 198 

" Fleets," 292 

Flemish Banks, no; tongue, 133, 

Flevo, Lake, 108 

Flushing, 1 10, 304, 311 

Focsani, 339 

Fogarash, Mount, 50 

Fohn wind, 117 

Forbach, 255 

Fore, F. A., 46 

Forest Cantons, ancient valleys of,, 

29 
Fraas, Eberhard, 46 
France, 2, 242, 255, 328 
Francia, 130 
Franconia, 14, 80 
Franconian Forest, 79, 269 ; lower 

dialect, 133 
Frankfurt, 84, 101, 144, 174, 252, 

253. 254,278, 279, 315 
Franks, the, 129, 144, 241, 254, 258,, 

291 
Franzensbad, springs of, 182 
Franzensfeste, 209 
Freeh, F., 15, 46 
Frederick the Second, 326 ; Third,, 

153 
Freiburg, 250, 271 
Freising, Otto von, 242 
Frejus, Col de, 318 
French Revolution, 147, 242, 259,, 

310 
Fribourg, 17, 204 
Friedrichsort, 98 



348 INDEX 



Friesland, 105 ; bogs of, 105 ; mar- 
shes of, 108 ; West, 300 
Frische Haff, 94, 285, 334 
Frische Nehrung, 94 
Frisian dialect, 133 
Friuli, Romansh valleys of, 128 
Fulda River, 262 
Fiinfkirchen, 226 
Furstenberg, 101 
Furth, Gate of, 76 
Furtwangen, 248 

Galatz, 70, 174, 219, 238, 339 

Galicia, 89, 129, 217 

Galton, Francis, 325 

Gap, 26 

Garda, Lake, 36 

Gaul, 125 

Genevre, Mont, 24 

Geneva, 3, 205, 206 ; Lake of, 23, 
30, 113, 329 ; works of, 193 

Genoa, 1 

Gera, 270 

German Admiralty Handbooks, 
in; Confederation, 145, 148; 
Empire, boundaries of, 147; im- 
ports and exports of, 200 ; foreign 
business activities of, 201 ; ship- 
ping of, 296 ; waterways of, 314 ; 
high and low dialects, 132 ; 
Lowland (North), 15; Southern 
States, 43 ; tongue, 142 

Germani, the, 124, 125 

Germania, Roman limes of, 127 ; 
upper frontier of, 127 

Germanic peoples, 4 

Germans, the West, 134 

Germany, 328 ; Alpine foreland 
of, 242 ; Baltic provinces of, 92 ; 
Celtic river names in, 125 ; 
central and south tablelands of, 
79 ; central mountains and hill 
country of, 256; easterly rivers 
of, 114; and France, buffer states 
between, 149 ; waterways of, 316 ; 
maritime position of, 7 ; North, 
great valleys of, 277 ; rainfall of, 
22 ; plain of, 90 ; North-West, 
5 ; landscape of, 104 ; ridges of, 
102 ; South, 15 

Ghent, 308 

Giessen, 262, 263 

Givet, Fortress of, 86 

Gjedser, 288 

Glachau, 271 



Glacial Epoch, 91 ; Period, 15, 92, 

99, 100 
Glatz, 78 
Gleiwitz, 275 

Gleinwicke, Castle of, 283 
Glogau, 102, 277, 336 
Goats, 169 
Gold, 184, 207 
" Goldene Aue," 268 
Gollnitz, 222 
Goniondz, 337 
Gopcevic, Spiridion, 240 
Goritz, Plain of, 24, 228 
Gorlitz, 273 
Goslar, 262, 265 
Gofha, 90, 269 
Gotthard, folded mountains of, 

Gottingen, 80, 268 

Gotz, W., 275 

Grseco-Oriental Church, 159 

Gran, 224 

Gran Paradiso, 26 

Gran River, 53, 221 

Grape, cultivation of, 115 

Graudenz, 335 

Gravosa, 62 ; Bay of, 231 

Graz, 38, 210 

Great Privilege, the, 299 

Greek Merchant Service, 238 

Greiz, 270 

Greisfwalder Bodden, 93 

Grisebach, 202 

Grisons, 17, 204, 207 ; ancient 

valleys of, 34 ; Romansh valleys 

of, 128 
Groningen, 105 
Gross-Glockner, 35 
Grosswardein, 129, 223 
Guelders, North, 301 
Guicciardini, 310 
Gulliver, 213 
Guthe, H., 297 
Gyalar, 187 

Haarlem, 301 

Haarlemer Meer, 108 

Habsburg Empire, 225 ; Habs- 
burgs, the, 211, 310 

Hadeln, 107 

Haff and Vistula Canal, 286 

Hagen, 260 

Hague, the, 302 ; Fishing Conven- 
tion of, 311 

Hainault, 86, 306 



INDEX 



349 



Halberstadt, 265 

Halicz, 72 

Hall, 207 

Halle, 262, 266, 267 

Hallein, 207 

Hallstadt, 207 

Hallwyl, Lake, 29 

Halstatt, Lake, 40 

Hamburg, in, 120, 264, 277, 291, 

292, 293, 294 ; shipping of, 296 
Hameln, 315 
Hamm, 259 ; W., 202 
Hanan, 242, 254 
Hann, J., 123 
Hanover, 88, 103, 263 
Hanseatic League, 131, 132, 144, 

265, 288, 292, 303 
Hanse Towns, 252 
Harburg, 291, 294 
Hardt Mountains, 83 
Haromsek Basin, 48 
Hartz Mountains, 11, 79, 87, 264, 

265, 268 
Hassert, K., 71 
Hauer, F. von, 88 
Hausruck, the, 42, 208 
Havel, River, 100, 280 ; Lakes of, 

283 ; Lower, 101 
Havelberg, 278 
Havelland, the, 101 
Hawaii, 176 
Hegau, 81 
Heidelberg, 250 
Heilbronn, 246, 315 
Heim, Albert, 8, 45 
Hela, Peninsula of, 95 
Helder, 303, 331 
Heligoland, 89, 103, 332 
Helvetian Republic, 147 
Hemp, 198 

Henry the Lion, 144, 263 
Hercules' Bath, 221 
Hermann Monument, 262 
Hermannstadt, 222 
Hermsburg, 120 
Hernad, 47 ; Valley, 218 
Herodotus, 66 
Herzegovina, 62, 112, 152, 153, 232, 

339 
Hesperides, 24 
Hesse, 15, 80, 262 ; Grand Duchy 

of, 242 ; Upper, 242 
Heuscheuer, the, yy ; Gebirge, 78 
Hildesheim, 265 
Hochfeld, 259 



Hoch Obir Observatory, 25 

Hochstellen, F. von, 71 

Hof, 270 

Hohen Tauern, 35, 209 

Hohentwiel, 82 

Hohenzollern Electors, 281 ; Prin- 
cipality of, 242 

Hohe Rhon, the, 262 

Holland, 105, 107, 299, 300 ; de- 
fences of, 330 ; Hook of, 109, 
311; imports and exports of, 
200 ; North Canal, 303 ; sea 
traffic of, 7 ; waterways of, 314 

Hollandsh Deep, 109 

Holstein, 146 ; Forden of, 97 

Homberg, 257 

Homer, 166 

Hond River, 309 

Hops, 177 

Horses, 166 

Hortobagy, Pusta of, 166 

Hospodars, 155, 239 

Hungary, 7, 48, 115, 141, 221; 
people of, 140; plain of, 5, 13, 
IQ > 53> II0 > 120,222 ; sand dunes 
of, 54 ; Southern, 132 ; Upper, 
valley formations, 50 ; wines of, 

5i 
Huns, the, 140 

I bar Valley, 63 

Ice Age, 93 ; on easterly rivers of 

Germany, 114 
Idria, 207 
Iglau, 216 
Ij Here, 302 

Ij, Lake of, 108 ; River, 302 
Ijmuiden, Fort of, 330 
111 River, 249 
Iller River, 43, 122 
Illyria, underground drainage of, 61 
Illyrian chains, 57 
Illyrians, the, 2 
Incas, the, 171 
India, 198, 230 

Ingolstadt, 44 ; Fortress of, 332 
Inn River, 34, 35, 38, 43 ; Valley of, 

22 
Innsbruck, 209 
Inster River, 98 
Interlaken, 30 
Iron, 186 ; Gates, 7, 47, 55 ; ore, 

198 ; trade, 195 
Isar River, 41, 193, 243 
Ischl, 207 



35° 

I sere, Valley of, 17 
Iser Gebirge, 215 
Iserlohn, 259, 260 
Isker River, 65, 66, 68 
Isonzo River, 57 
Istein, 332 
I stria, 116, 228 
Ivangorod, 337 
Ivan Pass, 62 
Ixelles, 307 

Jablunka Pass, 47, 137, 151, 217 

Jade Bay, 107, 108, 296 

Jagello, 149 

Jagerndorf, 217 

Japan, 230 

Jasmund Island, 96 

Jassy, 239 

Jaufen, the, 209 

Jena, 269 

Jews, 1^2 

Jirecek, Constantine, 240 

Joux, Lac du, 27 

Jura, the, 3, 27, 72, 80 ; Passes, 329 ; 

Swabian, 81 
Jute, 199 
Jutland, 3, 93 ; dunes of, 106 

Kahlenberg, 44 

Kaiserslauten, 83 

Kaiserstuhl, the, 250 

Kaiser Wilhelm Canal, 107, 314 

Kalusz, 219 

Kamtshik River, 67 

Kanitz, 240 

Karlsruhe, 83 

Karlstadt, 38, 56 

" Karren," the, 39, 58 

Karst, the, 38, 57, 59, 116, 117, 

227, 228 
Kaschau, 222 
Katwijk, 301 
Katzenbuckel, the, 83 
Kazanlik, 67 
Kehdirgen, 107 
Keilhack, K, 88, 91, in 
Kelheim, 127 
Kempen, 102 
Kerka River, 61 
Kiel, 98, 129, 289, 314,333 
Kielce, 73 
Kiepert, 9 
Kiev, 218, 219, 338 
Kilia River, 70 
Kimpolung, 162 



INDEX 



Kinzig, Valley, 251 

Kirchhoff, A., 8, 142, 275 

Klagenfurt, 209 ; basin, 38 

Klausenburg, 222 

Kloster Neuberg, 44 

Klosters, 34 

Knes, 154 

Kohl, F. G., 220, 213 

Kolln-Berlin, 281 

Komorn, 224, 225 

Konigsberg, 284,285, 315, 333, 334, 

336 ; sea canal, 284 
Konigsee, Lake, 40 
Konigshiitte, 275 
Konigstein, virgin fortress of, 77 
Kosel, 103, 274, 294, 315 
Kostendil, 64 
Kottbus, 135 
Kovno, 334 
Krauske, Mary, 322 
Kremnitz, 222 
Kronstadt, 48, 222 
Krupp steel works, 195 
Kulmerland, the, 135 
Kulpa River, 56 
Rumania, 53 
Kunkels Pass, 33 
Kurische Haff, 94 
Kurische Nehrung, 94 
Kusa, Alexander, 157 

Laach, Lake, 86 

Lace industry, 197 

La Chaux de Fonds, 206 

Lahn River, 85, 258, 262 

Laibach, 20, 209 ; basin, 38 

Landeshut, 78 

Landeskrone, 273 

Landquart, 34 

Landguard, 35 

Lauffen Rapids, 193 

Lausanne, 206 

Lauvers Zee, 108 

Lead, 195, 207 

Lebanon, 198 

Lech River, 43, 193, 243 

Lechfeld, the, 243 

Legrad, 56 

Lehesten, 269 

Lehmann, Paul, 8 ; R., 275 

Leine River, 88, 264 ; Valley of, 80 

Leipzig, 90, 266, 267 ; battlefield of, 

341 ; lowland bay of. 279 ; fair, 

267 ; University of, 267 
Leitha, 45 



INDEX 



35* 



Leitmeritz, 75 

Lek River, 109 

Leman, Lake, 205 

Lemberg, 137, 219 

Lenczyce, 101 

Lenz, Heath of, 33 

Leoben, 208 

Lepsius, Richard, 9, 88 

Levantine Merchant Service, 238 

Leyden, 302 

Libau, 93, 283 

Liege, 85, 305, 306, 307, 330; 
Bishopric of, 148 

Liegnitz, 273 

Lignite, 208 

Liguria, Gulf of, 210 

Ligurian Sea, 72 

Limburg, 307 

Limmat, the, 28 

Linden, 264 

Linz, 44, 75, 210 

Lippe River, 88 

Lisbon, 281 

Lissa, Island of, 340 

Lithuania, 100 

Lithuanians, the, 134 

Lombard Lakes, 33 

Lombardy, 36 

Lorn Palanka, 66 

London, 212, 281 

Lorch, 127 

Lorelei, 85 

Lorraine, 3, 83, 146, 242, 255 ; con- 
quest of, 242 

Lotharingia, 298 

Lotschen Pass, 206 

Louis the Fourteenth, 145, 250 

Louisiana, 176 

Lowerz, Lake, 28 

Lubbock, Sir J., 46 

Liibeck, 93, 264, 288, 289, 292 _ 

Lucerne, 206 ; Lake of, 24, 29, 30, 

3 1 . 

Luciensteig, Fortress of, 329 

Ludovic Canal, 81, 316 

Ludwigsburg, 246 

Ludwigshafen, 252 

Lugau, 271 

Lugano, Lake, 19, 36, 207 

Lukmanier Pass, 32 

Liineburg, 103 ; Heath, 103, 104, 

277 _ 
Luneville, 331 
Lusatia, 15, 215, 273 
Lussin, 60 ; Piccolo, 113 



Luxemburg, 83, 148, 256 ; Grand 

Duchy of, 148 
Lyons, 21 
Lys River, 308 

Maars, the, 86 

Maas River, 109 

Maaseyk, 148 

Macedonia, 63, 237 ; Empire of, 
236 ; Mountains of, 65 

Macugnaga, 32 

Maestricht, 257, 301 

Magdeburg, 264, 265 ; Arch- 
bishopric of, 266 

Maggiore, Lake, 19 

Magyars, the, 4, 128, 138, 140, 152, 
226 

Mahomedans, the, 152, 233 

Main River, 79, 85, 126, 241, 245, 
247 

Maize, 115, 171 

Malapane River, 257, 277 

Maloggia Pass, 34 

Mandra, Mount, 50 

Manicheans, the, 233 

Mannheim, 84, 174, 252 

Mansfeld, 87, 268 

Marburg, 262, 263 

March River, 47, 74; Valley, 211 

Marcus Aurelius, 3 

Margraves, the, 251, 277 

Maria Theresa, 226 

Marienbad, Springs of, 182 

Marienburg, 285 

Maritza River, 64, 65, 236 

Mark, the, 280, 281, 282 

Marmarosh River, 129 

Marne River, 82 ; and Rhine 
Canal, 257 

Marosh River, 48, 55, 222 

Marseilles, 212 

Martigny, 31 

Massalia, 3, 211 

Masuria, 98, 135, 284, 297, 334 

Matlekovitz, A. von, 277 

Maxan, 251 

Mayence, 82, 83, 84, 252, 253, 332 

Mecklenburg, 99, 130, 287 ; Lakes 
of, 99 

Mediterranean, 1, 2 ; vegetation, 24 

Meerane, 271 

Meissen, 271 ; Mark of, 130 

Melk, 42 

Mellingen, 30 

Melnik, 75, 215 



35 2 



INDEX 



Memel, 3, 93, 94, m, 284, 334 
Mendelssohn, 8 
Mera, 34 

Meran, 37, 209 ; Valley of, 24 
Merwede Canal, 303 ; River, 109 
Metkovits, 62, 313 
Metz, 83, 255, 327 ; bishopric of, 
235 ; fortress of, 331 ; hills of, 

83 
Meuse River, 3, 109 ; Valley, 85, 

3o5 
Meyer, Hans, 142 
Mezieres, 86 
Middelburg, 304 
Middle Ages, 145, 183, 205, 211, 

216, 229, 242, 243, 250, 253, 265, 

283, 308, 309 
Milan, 33, 259 
Minden, 88, 263 
Mineral products, 180 
Miskolcz, 223 
Mitrovitza, 64, 234 
Mittel Gebirge, 2, 89, 90, 193 
Moen, 97 

Mogontiacum, 249 
Mojsisovic, E. von, 46, 71 
Moldau River, 48, 74, 75, 238 
Moldavia, 155 
Mons, 306 

Mont Blanc, 25, 26, 32 
Mont Cenis, 318 
Mont Credo, 27 
Monte Rosa, 26, 32 
Monte Viso, 26 
Montbeliard, 316 
Montenegrins, the, 139 
Montenegro, 62, 153, 232, 339; 

Highlands of, 57, 62 
Morava River, 65, 235 ; Valley, 63, 

64 
Moravia, 13, 74 ; Southern, 130 
Moravian Gap or Gate, 13, 79, 89, 

90, 211 ; Ostrau, 216 ; Plain, 47 
Moschin, 101 
Moscow, 212, 281 
Moselle River, 3, 12, 83, 85 
Mostar, 112,232, 339 
Mottlau River, 286 
Mounier, Mount, 25 
Miihlheim, 259, 260 
Miilhausen, 250, 316 
Miillenhoff, 142 
Miinchen-Gladbach, 259 
Munich, 41, 43, 112, 193, 243, 323 
Munkacs, 165 



Muotta River, 28 

Mur River, 36, 210 ; Valley, 23, 210 

Miirz River, 210 

Myslowitz, 275, 334 

Naab River, 74 

Nagy, Hagymash, 48 

Namalossa, 339 

Namur, 86, 305, 330 

Nancz, 331 

Naples, 140 

Napoleon, 143, 145, 203, 230, 231, 

337 
Napoleonic Wars, 167 
Narenta River, 233, 313 ; Valley, 62 
Narew River, 3, 99, 100, 337 
Nationalities, diagram of, 141 
Naumburg, 268 
Nauportus, 210 
Neckar River, 79, 241, 245, 252 ; 

falls of, 193 
Neisse River, 78 ; Valley, 273 
Ner River, 101 
Nethe River, 330 
Netherlands, 92, 109, 147, 298, 

327 ; Habsburg, 148 
Netze River, 3, 100, 278 ; Valley, 

102 
Neuchatel, 206 
Neuenburg, 30 
Neufahr, 285 
Neufahrwasser, 93, 285 
Neumarkt, Pass of, 210 
Neumayr, M., 15 
Neusatz, 226 
Neuss, 261 
Neustadt, Gulf of, 97 
Neutra River, 53 
Neuwerk Island, 107 
Nied River, 83 
Niemen River, 3, 94, 283 
Nimeguen, 301 
Nissa, 65, 138, 235 
Noe, 45 

Nogat River, 285 
Nordhausen, 268 
Nordlingen, 81 
" Noric blade," 207 
North German Lloyd Steamship 

Company, 295 
North Sea, 78, no, 114, 314 ; and 

Baltic Canal, 289, 303, 332 ; 

fisheries, 311 ; lowlands of, 104, 

110 
Novi Bazar, 234 



INDEX 



353 



Novo Georgiewsk, 337 
Nuremberg, 81, 247 
Nyir, 53 

Oberland Canal, 285 

Ober-Wiesenthal, 271 

Obra River, 101, 278 

Odenwald, the, 80, 83 

Oder River, 47, 92, 95, 100, 101, 

273, 2 79> 336 ; swamp, 102 
Oderberg, 99, 100, 217 
Odessa, 1, 219, 281 
Oelsnitz, 271 
Ofen, 225 
Offenbach, 254 
Ohre River, 103 
Oil-Springs, 190 
Oisans, the, 26 
Okhotsk, Sea of, 161 
Olbia, 3, 211 
Olmiitz, 216 
Oppenheim, 84 
Orbe, the, 27 
Orkhanie, 67 
Orkney Islands, m 
Orshova, 56, 193 
Ortler, 35 
Osma River, 68 
Osnabriick, 88, 263 
Ostend, 3, 311 
Osterwald, the, 263 
Ostmark, the, 130, 211 
Otto the Great, 140 
Ottoman Empire, 152 
Ovid, 68 
Ozokerit, 190 

Pago, 60 

Palatinate, the, 74, 241 

Pannonia, 224 

Papenburg, 105 

Paris, 281 ; congress of, 156 

Partsch, J., 275 

Pas de Calais, 1 10 

Passau, 43, 44, 241 

Pax, Ferdinand, 56 

Penck, A., 8, 15,46, 213 

Peschel, O., 202 

Peters, K., 71 

Peterwardein, 226 

Petrosheny Valley, 50 

Pfander, the, 18 

Pfeffers, 33 

Pforzheim, 248 

Phanariot Greeks, 156 



Philip the Second, 299 

Philippines, 176 

Philippopolis, 65, 155, 236 

Phosphorus, 186 

Piedmont, 19, 24, 36 

Pig-iron, 186, 198 

Pigs, 168 

Pillau, 1, 94 

Pillauer Deep, 334 

Pilsen, 76, 215 ; coal-beds of, 74 

Pinzgau, 40 

Pipe manufacture, 198 

Pirna, 271 

Pistyan, 221 

Pitt, William, 330 

Plansee, Lake, 40 

Platt-Deutsch dialect, 133 

Platten Sea (see Balaton Lake) 

Plauen, 270 

Pleisse River, 267 

Plon Lake, 99 

Plums, 179 

Po, Plain of, 24 

Podolia, 72 ; Plain of, 218 

Pola, 120, 230, 340 

Poland, 3, 102, 137, 149, 217, 279; 

Mountains of, 73 
Poles, the, 137, 151 
Polish Immigration, 136 
"Polye" Valleys, 60 
Pomerania, 3, 94, 95 ; Boddens of, 

96 ; Hither, 288 ; Western, 287 
Pontebba, Pass of, 38 
Pontic basin, 1, 13 ; watershed, 37 
Pontresina, 35 
Poprad, Valley of, 50 
Porte, the, 154, 156" 
Porto Rico, 176 
Portuguese discoveries, 310 
Posen, 103, 278, 279 ; Fortress of, 

335> 336 
Potatoes, 176, 178 
Potsdam, 282, 283 
Pragmatic Sanction, the, 299 
Prague, 75, 78,215, 294, 315 
Pregel River, 94 
Pressburg, 224 
Pripet River, 338 
Prosna River, 102 
Prussia, 130, 146; East, 94, 98, 283; 

shipping of, 296 
Pruth River, 47, 69, 71, 238; Valley, 

73 
Przemysl, 137, 338 ; Fortress of, 218 
Pusta, the, 54 



354 



INDEX 



Pusterthal, 37 

Quarnero, 120 ; River, 230 
Quedlinburg, 265 
Queis, the, 273 
Quicksilver, 207 

Raab River, 53 ; Valley, 210 

Raduyevats, 235 

Rastia, Roman limes of, 127 

Ragatz, 33 

Ragusa, 7, 62, 113, 120, 231 

Railway systems, 317 

Rainfall, 119 

Ratisbon, 42, 244, 315 

Ratzel, F., 160 

Rauhe Alb, 241 

Raurica, colony of, 249 

Ravenstein, L., 45 

Reformation, the, 132, 145 

Regel, Fritz, 275 

Regnitz River, 81, 316 

Rehmann, 56 

Reichenhall, 208 ; brine springs of, 
182 

Reichenau, 33 

Reichenberg, 215 

Remscheid, 259, 260 

Reschen Scheideck, 35 

Retyezat, Mount, 50 

Reuss, the, 28, 31 

Rhsetia, frontier of, 127 

Rhaetian Alps, 25 

Rheingau, the, 84, 126, 242 

Rhenish Mountains, 3 

Rhine River, 2, 3, 14, 15, 27, 31, 
33, 109, 114, 123, 143, 249, 251, 
256, 304, 331 ; mountains of, 79, 
82, 85 ; rapids of, 193 ; upper 
lowland of, 82, 116, 248; plain 
of, 84; and Rhone Canal, 316; 
and Marne Canal, 257 ; valleys, 
33, 208 

Rhodope, 236 

Rhon, the, 80 

Rhone River, 1, 13, 27, 31, 123 ; 
Glacier, 21 ; and Rhine Canal, 
316 

Richter, Edward, 46, 240 

Rienz, 38 

Ries Valley, 127, 243 

Riesen-Gebirge, 78, 215 

Rigi, the, 18, 30 

Rila Mountain, 64 

Ringstrasse, the, 213 



Riviera, the, 113 

Rixdorf, 282 

Rodna Mountains, 49 

Rokitno, 163 

Roman Empire, 4, 126, 128, 141, 

143, 154, 258 ; limes of Germania 

and Rastia, 127 ; roads, 66 
Romanic tongue, 255 
Romans, the, 4, 125, 126, 161, 211, 

249, 258 
Rome, 230, 231, 281 
Romer, E. von, 56 
Romer, F., 15 
. Rosaliengebirg, 45 
Rosengarten, 37 
Rosenheim, 208 
Rostock, 288 
Rothschilds, the, 254 
Rotterdam, 109, 163, 302, 304 
Roumania, 116, 156, 157, 239, 338 ; 

basin of, 45 ; loess terrace of, 69 
Roumanians, the, 128, 129 
Roumelia, 236 
Riidersdorf, 89 
Rudesheim, 85 

Rudolf, Crown Prince, 142, 213,240 
Riigen, 89, 97 ; Island, 96 
Ruhla, 198, 270 
Ruhr Valley, 85 
Ruhrort, 259 
Rupel River, 308, 330 
Russia, 94, 102, 149, 150, 328 
Russian Empire, 333, 337 
Rustchuk, 339 
Ruthenians, the, 138 
Ruyter, 163 
Rye, 172 

Saale River, 12, 79 

Saalfield, 90, 269 

Saar River, 11, 83, 257 ; Valley, 85 

Saarbriicken, 85 ; coalfield of, 257 

Sabioncello Peninsula, 62 

" Sachsenganger," 136 

St. Bernard, Great, 32 ; obser- 
vatory, 25 ; Little, 32 

St. Gall en, 204, 206 

St. George River, 70 

St. Gotthard, 32, 329 ; railway, 320 ; 
tunnels, 319 

St. Maurice Valley, 21 

St. Petersburg, 281 

Salona, 231 

Salonica, 64, 152 ; and Belgrade 
railway, 64 



INDEX 



355 



Salt, 183, 204 
Salzach, 38, 43 
Salzburg, 39, 207, 209 
Salzkammergut, 40 ; brine springs 

of, 182 ; salt mines of, 207 
Salzwedel, 280 
Samartian Jazyges, 140 
Sambor, 90 
Sambre River, 85 
Samland, Cape, 94 ; Plateau, 98 
San River, 47, 218 
San Bernardino Pass, 32, 33 
Sand dunes, Hungarian, 54 
Sandomirz, 3, 72> 
Sanssouci, Castle of, 283 
Saone River, 13 
Saorgio, 24 
Sarayero, 339 
Sargans, 28 
Save River, 56, 57, 226 ; Valley, 

19, 2 3 
Saverne, Pass of, 82 
Savoy, 17, 28 
Saxe-Meiningen, 270 
Saxon, Lower, dialect, 133 
Saxons, the, 129, 143 
Saxony, 11, 12, 76, 89, 103 
Saxony, Electors of, 267 
Scandinavia, 15, 90, 92 
Scania, 97 
Schafberg, 40 
Schaffhausen, 26, 30, 205 
Schandau, 90 
Schaumburg-Lippe, 263 
Scheldt River, no, 307, 308, 309, 

330 
Schemnitz, 222 
Schimper, 202 
Schlern, 2>7 
Schleswig, 92, 98, 107, 112, 146; 

Holstein, 99, 288, 290 ; Danes 

of, 134. 
Schmollnitz, 222 
Schneeberg, the, 69, 214 
Schneekoppe Mountain, 78 
Schober Pass, 210 
Schonborn-Buchheim, Count, 165 
Schoneberg, 282 
Schwarzenberg, Prince, 165 
Schwaz, 207 
Schweizerhall, 204 
Schwerin, 99, 288 
Schwyz, 28 
Schyn Pass, 33 
Scotch firs, 164 
24 



Scutari, 138 ; Lake, 232 

Scyl River, 50 

Sebenico, 61, 231 

Sedan, 86 

Segeberg, 100 

Seged, 223 

Segedin, 55 

Seignobos, C, 160 

Seine River, 1, 6 

Semlin, 226 

Semmering, 17 ; Pass, 38 ; railway, 
210 

Sempach, Lake, 29 

Senne River, 307 

Sentis Observatory, 25 

Septimer Pass, 33 

Seraing, 306 

Serdica, 236, 237 

Sereth River, 69, 238 

Servia, 154, 233 ; limestone moun- 
tains of, 65 ; primitive mountains 
and main valleys of, 63 ; Church 
of, 154 

Servians, the, 139 

Seven Years' War, 149, 150 

'sGravenhage, 302 

Shar Dagh, 69 

Sheep, 169 

Shetland Islands, 111 

Shipka Pass, 67 

Shumla, 339 

Sieben-Gebirge, 85 

Sigmaringen, 81 

Silesia, n, 12, 73, 89, 102, 103, 
130, 273 ; conquest of, 145 ; coal 
measures, 73 

Silistria, 70, 339 

Silk, 198, 199 

Silver, 184, 207 

Simplon Pass, 32 ; Tunnel, 318 

Sinaya, 239 

Siscia, 227 

Sissek, 56, 227 

Slavonic peoples, 129, 134 ; place- 
names, 130 

Slavonica, 226 

Slavs, the, 4, 138, 149, 151 

Slivnitsa, 339 

Slovaks, the, 49, 138 

Slovenes, the, 139 

Sluys, 304 

Sobieski, John, 218 

Sofia, 65, 236, 237, 339 ; Plain of, 65 

Solferino, battle of, 36 

Solingen, 260 



356 



INDEX 



Soiling, the, 80 

Solnhofen Stone, 190 

Sonneberg, 269 

Sonnblic Observatory, 25 

Sormonne, Valley of, 86 

Spain, 299 

Spalato, 7, 231 

Spandau, 101, 278, 282 

Speer, the, 18 

Sperenberg, 183 

Spessart, the, 80 

Spirding, Lake, 99 

Spires, 252 

Spitzbergen, 292 

Spizza, 232 

Spliigen Pass, 19, 33 

Spree River, 101 

Spreewald, 101 

Springs, hot and mineral, 181 

Spruner-Menke, 160 

Sredna Gora, the, 236 

Stara Planina, 66 

Starnberg, Lake of, 41 

Stecknitz Canal, 289 

Steinhuder Meer Cape, 104 

Stelvio, 35 

Stephen Dushan (King), 154 

Sterzing, 209 

Stettin, 1, 93, 285, 287 

Stieler, 9 

Stockholm, 281 

Stone, 190 

Strassburg, 82, 84, 250, 251, 252, 

315, 332 ; Fortress of, 331 
Strassfurt, 183 
Struma River, 64 
Stubben Kammer, 96 
Stuhlweissenburg, 224, 225 
Stuttgart, 246 
Styria, 207 
Sudetes, 11, 14 
Sudetic Mountains, 74, 75, 90 
Suess, E., 15, 45 
Suez Canal, 230 
Sugar, 175 
Sulina, 116,238 ; River, 70; estuary 

of, 238 
Suntel Ridge, 88 
Supan, A., 8, 123 
Suwalki, 137 
Swabia, 28, 80, 82 
Swabians, the, 129, 144, 241, 254 
Sweden, 93, 198, 295 
Swinemunde, 93, 287 
Swiss Confederation, 144, 147, 203 



Switzerland, 13, 17, 25, 26, 203, 
327 ; defences of, 329 ; imports 
and exports of, 200 ; Saxon, yy ; 
textile industries of, 204 

Sylt, 290 

Tacitus, 124, 125 

Tagliamento, 38 ; Valley, 22 

Tamina, Lesser, 33 

Tarento, 140 

Tarnopol, 219 

Tarnowitz, 275 

Tartar Bazardjik, 236 

Tartars, the, 140 

Tatra, the high, 49, 221 ; Moun- 
tains, 50 

Taunus, the, 86 

Tavern, 37, 207 

Temesh Comitat, 54 

Temeshvar, 129, 223 

Tenda, 24 

Teplitz, 215 ; springs of, 182 

Terneuzen, 308 

Ternova, 67 

Teschen, 217 

Teutoburger Wald, 88 

Teutonic Order, the, 130, 132, 144, 
149, 285 

Teutons, the, 4, 125 

Texel, 108, in 

Thames River, 6 

Thaya River, 216 

Theiss River, 47, 54 

Thionville, 255 

Thirty Years' War, 145, 167, 244 

Thorn, 218,278,294, 3 15, 335,336 ; 
Valley, 100 

Thrace, 138 

Thuringia, 11, 14, 268 

Thuringian Forest, 14, 79, 90 ; 
porcelain trade of, 269 

Thuringians, the, 129 

Thurmberg, 99 

Thusis, 33 

Ticino, 25, 36, 207 

Tiefenkasten, 33 

Tielze, 71 

Tietze, E., 71 

Tilsit, 284, 315 

Timber, 162, 163 

Timok River, 65, 66 ; Valley, 

139 
Tin, 198 
Toblach, 2,7 
Torzburg Pass, 50 



INDEX 



357 



Toul, Bishopric of, 255 ; Fortress 

of, 332 
Toula, F., 71 
Toy manufacture, 197 
Trajan, Wall of, 128 
Travemiinde, 93 
Transleithania, 151 
Transylvania, 3, 48, 49, 128 
Traunstein, 208 
Trave River, 289 
Trebinye, 339 _ 
Trencsin-Teplitz, 221 
Trentino, the, 340 
Treves, 257 
Trient, 209 
Trieste, 1, 7, 117, 139, 228, 229; 

-Vienna railway, 38 
Triglav, 38 

Triple Alliance, the, 340 
Tromp, 163 
Troppau, 217 
Tserkvitse, 120 
Tshwrstnitsa Mountain, 63 
Tuchel, Heath of, 99 
Tundja River, 65 
Turkish Wars, 159, 212 
Turn Severin, 55 
Turks, the, 132, 140, 153 
Tyndall, J., 46 
Tyrol, 207 ; Castle of, 24, 209, 

Southern, 25, 208 ; Romansh 

valleys of, 128 

Uhlig, V., 56 

Ulm, 43, 81, 244, 246 ; Cathedral 

of, 244 ; Fortress of, 332 
Umlauft, F , 45 

United States, sugar production of, 
. 176 

Ural Mountains, 102 
Uralo-Altaic races, 4, 139 
Urdingen, 174 
Uri, 207 

Urserenthal, 31, 329 
Usedom Island, 95 
Utrecht, 301 

Vadja Hunyad, 187 
Valachs, the, 128 
Valais, the, 22, 23, 31, 207 
Val d'Aosta, 32 
Valenciennes, 86 
Valteline, 35, 36 
Vand, 23 
Varangians, the, 1 



Varna, 68, 237, 339 

Vecht River, 301 

Vedretta Marmolata, 37 

Veglia, 60 

Velebit Mountains, 60, 231 

Veluwe, the, 301 

Venedae, the, 125 

Venediger, the, 35, 69 

Venetian Alps, 25 

Venice, 37, 38, 229, 259 

Verdun, Bishopric of, 255 ; Fortress 

of, 332 ; Treaty of, 298 
Verona, 37 
Verviers, 306 
Vespasian, 127 
Via Mala, 33 
Vid River, 68 
Vienna, 38, 210, 323 ; basin of, 45 ; 

congress of, 147, 299, 303, 326 ; 

Czechsin, 136; Trieste railway, 38 
Vienne, 21 
Vilna, 334 
Vindobona, 211 
Vindonissa, 206 
Vineyards, 178 
Vishegrad, Castle of, 53, 224 
Vistula River, 2, 3, 47, 72^ 94) IOO > 

101, 218, 278, 283, 285, 337; 

Delta of, 286 ; and Haff Canal, 

286 ; Valley of, 284 
Vitosha, the, 64 
Vladika, the, 153 
Vladivostock, 281 
Vogel-Gebirge, 262 
Vogel, Carl, 9 
Vogelsberg, the, So 
Vogtland, 76, 270 
Vorarlberg, the, 207, 208 
Vosges, the, 3, 82 
Vranya, 235 

Waag River, 47,53; Valley, 211,218 

Waal River, 109 

Wagrien Peninsula, 129 

Warmer, 46 

Wahnschaffe, in 

Waitzen, 53 

Walchensee, Lake, 40 

Walcheren, 1 10, 304, 309 

Waldeck, 262 

Waldenburg coal basin, 78, 273 

Wallachia, 155, 238 

Wallenstadt, Lake, 28 

Wandsbeck, 294 

Wangen, 29 



358 



INDEX 



Wangeroog, 108 

Warming, 202 

Warnemiinde, 288 

Warsaw, 100, 278, 334, 337 ; basin 

of, 101 
Warta River, 3, 73, 100, 278 ; 

Valley, 102 
Watch-making, 197 
Water-power, 192 
Waterloo, battlefield of, 307 
Watzmann, Lake, 40 
Weaving industry, 197 
Weide River, 102 
Weimar, 269 
Wekelsdorf, 77 
Welna River, 279 
Wendish tongue, 272 
Wends, the, 135 
Werdau, 271 
Werra River, 262 
Wertach River, 243 
Wesel, 332 
Weser River, 12, 79, 88, 103, 104, 

108, 261, 263,295, 332 ; Mountains 

of, 87 
Westerwald, the, 126 ; Plains of, 85 
Westphalia, 11 
Westphalian Gate, 88, 104 
Wetterau, the, 126 
Wetterstein Gebirge, 39 
Wheat, 170, 172, 174 
White Korosh River, 222 
Widdin, 138, 339 
Wiehen-Gebirge, 263 
Wieliczka, 151, 183, 218 
Wienerwald, the, 18, 44, 47 
Wieringen Island, 108 
Wiesbaden, 85, 113, 162, 253 
Wiese, Valley of, 248 
Wilhelmshaven, 108, 296, 332 
Wind-power, 192 
Wine, 178, 179, 181 



Winkler, Heinrich, 227 
Wire-drawing, 197 
Wiskola, 47 
Witkowitz, 216 
Witten, 260 
Wittenberg, 257, 277 
Wolfratshausen, 41 
Wollin Island, 95 
Wool, 169, 198 
Worms, 252 
Wornitz River, 81 
Worth, Lake, 38 
Wupper River, 260 
Wursten, 107 
Wiirtemberg. 242 
Wiirzburg, 178, 247 
Wutach, Valley of, 248 

YAMBOLI, 67 

Yantra Valley, 67 

Ypres, 308 

Yumruktshal Mountain, 67 

Yverdon, 193 

Yssel River, 109, 301 

Zara, 231 ; coast of, 60 

Zbrug River, 72 

Zealand, 304, 3 1 1 

Zeuss, 142 

Zillerthal, 35 

Zimmermann, E., 88 

Zinc, 185, 195, 207 

Zweck, A., 297 

Zopport, 94 

Zug, Lake, 28 

Zugspitze, 39 ; Observatory, 25 

Zujovic, 71 

Zurich, 204, 206 ; Lake, 28, 30 

Zuyder Zee, 104, 107, 108, 301, 302, 

303, 3ii 
Zweibriicken, 83 
Zwickau, 77, 270, 271 



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